Fools of a Different Kind
by MidnightRun42
Summary: Ryuunosuke and Atsushi's lives kept intersecting and their partnership kept changing and neither was particularly keen to put a name to any of it. A series of short stories, a collection of days, eventually alternating perspectives.
1. Ill-Fitting Shoes

_"Everyone is happier if they have someone else to look down on, as well as someone to look up to, especially if they resent both."_  
― Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job

 **-ooo-**

When he thought about it, which he tried not to do often... or at all really, he thought this strange feeling might have started the moment he made the decision to wrap Rashomon around him like a second skin. The moment he had felt the shape of slim limbs transform and stretch as he held him, guided him, fortified him, let the Man-Tiger's strength supplement his own weakness in order to defeat that trashy nouveau riche bastard.

Other times he thought it might have started before that.

Perhaps when they fought on the boat surrounded by flames and imminent destruction. When there'd been nothing between them but resentment, rage and indignation.

Or in the alley when they'd been nothing more than strangers at odds, predator and prey.

Or when he'd first seen the name ' _Nakajima Atsushi'_ scribbled across that bounty Higuchi had handed him.

He imagined sometimes that he'd felt something in that first moment that told the story of every moment that would follow.

That somehow he'd always known that narrative would lead to the alley where they met and from there to every fight that came after and finally to this moment beneath an otherwise unremarkable bridge. To sitting against the limited shelter of shattered concrete wheezing, bleeding, waiting on reinforcements that might never come with Man-Tiger's fingers pressed warm and tight against his blood-soaked knee. As if he could hold the blood inside his body by sheer force of his concern.

His _annoying_ , squawking, seemingly _endless_ babble of frantic, shrieking _concern_.

"Akutagawa! You can do the thing, right? So, just do the thing already! You're losing a lot of blood. Stop ignoring me!"

"Then stop _talking_ ," he snarled tiredly, already stirring Rashomon back to reluctant life to slide across their skin, to lash and bind their wounds, seal the space within so no blood could escape. Better than a bandage, but more exhausting too. The tiger squirmed, making it difficult to get a decent grip. It was irksome, but then practically _everything_ about him was irksome. "Get off me or lie still, lazy, fickle cat."

"I can't help it! It tickles! And I'm _tired_. I ran all the way here from the office. I'm lucky I got here in time to help."

He was not jealous of the Man-Tiger's stamina, but it often irritated that he took it so clearly for granted.

After all, the Armed Detective Agency was across town more than ten kilometers away. He himself could barely run a few blocks at a stretch.

"I didn't need you," he snapped, shaking off thoughts of his own inadequacies.

He could have managed just fine on his own.

"Well, it's not like I _wanted_ to come," he pouted, instantly defensive as he folded his arms across his chest. "Dazai-san said I had to!"

The name gives him pause, sends a small part of him dithering about, cast adrift with endless questions that he would never receive answers for. The larger part of him remained in the moment with wide eyes and a fair certainty that the Man-Tiger was teasing him. "I should kill you for interfering anyway."

"Ungrateful jerk. I saved your stupid life, you know! That guy's ability punched through your armor like it was paper."

He snorted at the absurdity of the statement and opened his mouth to give him the response he deserved, but the sound caught in his throat and collapsed into a rough, aching cough that he muffled against the back of his hand.

He despised this weakness of body. This weakness that left him trembling with exhaustion, having to work for each strained and wet gasp of breath choked out in the aftermath of too much exertion.

"Akutagawa? Hey! Are you okay? Akutagawa?"

In lieu of the breath necessary to tell him to be quiet, he slapped his free hand over the Man-Tiger's noisy mouth to muffle the yipping hyena whine of his voice. It was a pity he lacked a third hand to scratch out the concern that widened his gaze. He was, however, fortunate enough to have additional options available to him.

He tightened Rashomon around them both, coaxing out an additional tendril, feeling the strain of the extra effort sizzling behind his eyes as he guided it with a thought to slither up the Man-Tiger's back and wind around his head, covering those eyes and buying himself relief from that inquisitive gaze as he regained control of his uncooperative body.

Which would have been fine if Man-Tiger had put up even a token resistance. He'd have had no qualms about restraining him if he'd at least been visibly put out by it. Might even have enjoyed it.

Instead he just _knelt_ _there_ , his whole body vibrating with tension, clutching his knees with bloodless fingers. Worse yet, he could _feel_ his lips moving, words spoken in silence, syllables murmured like prayer against the palm of his hand, almost too fast to be understood but for the familiarity with his own name and the simplicity of the words asking him to be okay.

Ridiculous.

"Just," he began, stifling another brief coughing fit against the back of his free hand. "Just give me a moment."

He felt more than saw the nod as Man-Tiger's lips fell still against his skin.

It took longer than a moment, but by the time he withdrew his hand and uncovered Man-Tiger's eyes he felt steadier and the need to cough had eased for the moment.

"Okay?" He asked quietly, fingers still clutching his knees.

"Fine," he answered, too quickly, he realized, half-expecting Man-Tiger to comment on it, but he didn't. Instead he merely nodded before slumping back down to lay beside him, eyes shut, rolling and flopping down on his back across the blood-stained dirt and weeds as if he'd spent all his energy in the adrenaline of those moments of misplaced concern.

The black tendrils of Rashomon remained stretched between them, an awkward cat's cradle of crisscrossed lines thrumming with power.

He gingerly leaned aching muscles back against the concrete support behind him, reaching for comfort or, failing that, at least a brief respite from the pain weaving through his shoulders and lower back where no doubt clouds of color were already blooming dark against his skin beneath layers of fabric.

He had always bruised easily.

He hadn't realized that he'd closed his eyes until he felt Man-Tiger shift beside him, slitting his eyes open in time to see as well as feel his head pillow itself against his thigh.

He wondered briefly if freakishly fast healers were capable of being concussed or if, perhaps, Dazai-san's suicidal tendencies were actually contagious.

"What are you doing?"

The tiger yelped and jumped and probably would have scrambled backwards if he hadn't caught him in place by tightening the hold of the fabric still wrapped around his forearm.

"Sorry, I was just..." he opened his mouth and shut it again once, twice, three times as if he had an idea of what he wanted to say but no will to actually carry through with saying it.

"You look like a landed trout," he commented, closing his eyes again and using the fabric to tug at his wrist. It was all the permission he was willing to give and he still wasn't certain when the weight of Man-Tiger's head settled against his thigh once more whether he was annoyed or grateful that he'd taken the hint.

It wasn't as if he _wanted_ him so close. It was simply easier to keep track of him in such an instance.

It was strange being so close to someone, but it kept him awake, aware, kept him from relaxing completely, which he was grateful for.

And time passed.

There was something like a grumble vibrating the air between them, the growl of the tiger resonating in his all too human throat. When he looked down he was surprised to find Man-Tiger's mouth slack, features softened by sleep.

Ridiculous.

He lifted a hand to curl against the long column of his neck, easing cramping fingers tight around his sun-kissed flesh.

He might have been able to kill him in that moment, while he slept, his power inactive and likely exhausted.

The impulse was certainly there. That rampant, unquenchable desire to prove he was… better, more deserving, more useful, stronger, _worthy_. That he deserved what he had, that he was more than what he had once been.

That he was capable, that he had become something more than _weak_.

That longing, that hunger, was still there, as it had always been as it would likely always be, inescapable. He had been born hungry and nothing in the years between had ever managed to ease that feeling for more than the span of moments.

Not even Dazai-san's praise.

There would always linger that compulsion to prove his worth, to justify his continued existence, to find a purpose for the useless power he wielded. To prove to himself again and again that he deserved to be a part of this blood-soaked, sunlit world so far from the darkness that birthed them… that he deserved to _be_.

To prove he was strong enough, that he would never be that child again unable to protect, only to avenge.

For that feeling, that affirmation, he would work and he would kill and he would die and in the end it would still never be enough.

He would never be enough.

The temptation to carve the proof of his improvement into the Man-Tiger's hide was phenomenal.

As if by doing so he could finally wash away the memory of that helplessness, that looming shadow of weakness from his soul.

It had been so even before Dazai-san had compared them and found him wanting.

But….

The weak were meant to die.

The weak did not survive.

But they had.

Together.

Many times.

He could even admit, though never aloud, that since they'd met, he'd felt… better. As if something inside him, some undefined tension, had been eased by Man-Tiger's existence, by the presence of someone who he could throw himself against in earnest. A challenge, a wall he could not yet scale. Someone he could depend on to survive anything that was thrown at him.

It mattered very little to him even now whether they fought together or as opponents in the long series of hard-won battles that made up their respective lives, that strange feeling that sometimes felt like relief and sometimes like pain and sometimes like some indefinable _something_ for which he had no name lingered on within him just the same. It felt just as satisfying to hit him as it did to hit someone with him and it brought a vicious smile to his lips just as often as it did a frown.

He'd tried to speak of it to Gin once, but even as he'd opened his mouth he'd realized he had no idea what to say, how to describe it. That feeling of being able to do… _more_ , be _more_ , with him than he had been before. It was… a disconcerting feeling in the times between and one he didn't care for in the least. It made him feel vulnerable, as if he were the one being laid open and bare by the clench of fabric around those thin wrists.

Perhaps he was even the slightest bit concerned that Gin would say - as so many had - that they were similar. That from Gin the words would take on a far greater form and weight than they had from any other, that they might hold a measure of truth that forced him to scrutinize his own denials.

Whatever the reason in the end he kept his silence on the subject even with Gin.

He did not wish to think of himself as being half so foolish as that idiot.

He was certain that he could have killed him the first time that he had dared to bare his throat to his power and trusted that he would not simply rip it out.

He was, after all, the sort of fool who would trust a stranger's directions even if he heard them snickering at his back as he walked away.

The kind of idiot who seemed to have forgotten that they were even enemies at all, as if it had simply never occurred to him to take that trust back when they parted ways to return to opposing sides of the long-standing conflict between agency and mafia. As if it didn't bother him in the slightest that whatever trust had been between them had never been truly earned.

And yet that strange feeling allowed him to refrain from using that trust to cut the Man-Tiger down even though the temptation to do so was always there.

Allowed him to catch hold of him whenever he tried to run or allow Man-Tiger to act as his shield when it was necessary. Allowed them to be something perilously close to partners even with all the resentment that still lingered between them.

He commanded many within the organization he had chosen to serve, but he rarely felt the weight of their lives as distinctly as he felt his in the frantic beat of his heart in the hectic fury of battle or in these quiet moments that came after.

So, once more, as he had many times before, he stood at the precipice with his life in his hands and once more he allow that life to continue untouched, to choose instead to surrender to the persistent weight of exhaustion tugging his limbs and power towards lethargy. He was, after all, on the verge of collapse, buoyed only by the euphoria of a job well done and the unsettlingly weight balanced against his leg.

It would hardly have been worth the effort anyway. He'd probably have survived any weak attempt he might have made just to spite him and then withdrawn to sleep elsewhere and he would have lost the languid warmth of Man-Tiger's weight sprawled across him for no significant gain.

His grip against Man-Tiger's neck eventually loosening, seemingly of its own volition and by no will of his own, allowing gravity to pull his limp fingers to settle in the Man-Tiger's rough-cut hair, carding through sweat-damp strands. It was uneven and unflattering and he frowned at it, gaze bleary and eyelids heavy.

Soft.

He probably cut it himself, like he did his own, though their motivations were probably considerably different.

He pressed the back of his free hand against his mouth as a weak cough worked its way free of his chest to heave weakness against his skin once more.

"Okay?" Man-Tiger asked sleepily, turning his head to stare up at him with those wide, disconcerting eyes.

He could barely find the energy to hum an affirmative, but it seemed enough for his companion as he turned away his face away, sighing and nuzzling against his leg in an attempt to find a comfortable spot that almost certainly didn't exist.

Dawn was breaking, light slipping over the horizon, through the cracks in distant buildings to spill across the waters of the canal, to visit warmth across their feet to contrast with the cool of shadow that still swathed the rest of them.

Their enemies were gone, at least for the moment, carried off by the water's flow toward the sea along with some of the Man-Tiger's discarded limbs and one of his own shoes. He wasn't even completely positive at what point in the fight he'd lost the shoe, but he definitely had and he realized he must be even more exhausted than he thought not to have noticed until that moment.

He frowned at his stocking clad foot, wiggling his toes to worry against an inconvenient hole and managing only to widen it. Knitting the sheer fabric together was simple enough task typically, he rarely bought new clothes when it was such a small matter to repair the old ones, but the fight had been long and drawn-out and he lacked the energy or the will to turn his attention to such trivialities.

Or perhaps he'd known his fingers would find their way there eventually.

Perhaps the idiot Man-Tiger's particular brand of insanity was contagious.

Warm fingers traced around the edge of the fabric, across the shape of his toes, tapped against the nail of his big toe.

"There's a hole in your sock."

"Is there?" He inquired, his tone dripping disdain.

"Where'd your shoe go?"

"I don't know, but it's probably your fault that it's gone."

"Why would _you_ losing a shoe be _my_ fault?" He grumbled, affronted, short nails scratching over that inconvenient spot of bare flesh.

"You fight like you're trapped in a burlap sack, all flailing limbs and no direction, no restraint. It's pathetic."

"No, I don't!" He snapped, fingers poking irritably between toes that wiggled away from his touch and against an arch that shimmied this way and that to escape as Rashomon stirred to life and snapping at his jabbing fingers like a lazy, affronted kitten. It was a pathetic defense, but the best Rashomon seemed willing to mount for such a mild irritant. "And even if I _did_ , it's not like I was really trained or anything so I don't know what you expect."

"I expect," he replied, fingers yanking tiredly at his hair. "That you let me lead since I'm the one doing all the work."

"Hey! I'm not just a doll for you to push around."

"Then what good are you?"

"Shut up," he grumbled, fingers swiping across the underside of his foot, causing him to jerk it back and away. "We won, didn't we?"

"We did," he agreed, catching another cough against the back of his hand.

"Okay?"

Though he'd been hearing it in similar questions for months, though he'd recognized it in the Man-Tiger's actions earlier, the concern in his voice still made him uncomfortable.

"Idiots who have time to worry about others should worry themselves first," he grumbled, turning his face away towards the deepening shadows beneath the bridge.

Man-Tiger fell silent as he always did. Probably reflecting on how he didn't deserve to ask after his health or something equally ridiculous.

Irksome idiot.

"Think they'll get here soon?" He asked. It was an awkward and obvious change of subject and he wasn't even entirely certain who the 'they' was in this scenario, but he let it pass unremarked.

And then when the expectant silence grew too bothersome, he sighed a heavy: "soon enough."

"Yeah," Man-Tiger answered, jaw cracking as he yawned, wide, twisting his head this way and that as he made himself more comfortable against the bend of his knee completely oblivious to any potential danger he might be in.

Eventually he settled down, his outstretched hand falling across his foot, covering his bare toes with all the subtle casualness of a angry rhino mowing down pedestrians at an outdoor bazaar.

He let that pass unremarked as well, too tired to bother taking issue with such a small thing. It felt better to have that skin concealed again anyway.

The silence that had fallen between remained uninterrupted this time and he found himself dozing for moments at a time as the sun continued its assent, casting the shadows darker in contrast to the bright warmth that rolled across the Man-Tiger's back, over his hand where it was still nestled in the unruly fall of his hair.

He curled closer, mumbling in his sleep, his grip against his foot tightening minutely.

It was a strange feeling.

That tightness in his chest, that warmth in his belly.

It made him feel uncertain, made him soft in ways he'd never been before.

He was pretty sure most of the time that he really hated it.

But, at the same time, it was not unlike putting on a pair of ill-fitting shoes: uncomfortable, often unpleasant, but he still felt better with that feeling wrapped around him than he had without it.

 **NOTES:**

As far as I can tell, with limited exception, Akutagawa tends to think of people in terms of descriptors. I assume this is (unconsciously) an effort to impose distance between himself and others. Hence the Man-Tiger is the Man-Tiger both when he's speaking with him and when he's thinking about him. I also assume he has labels for almost everyone else he deals with outside of Dazai and Gin and Higuchi (and possibly Mori... but I'm pretty sure he's an insubordinate little SOB there too).

And, yeah, I just assume that Akutagawa can use his power to mend his own clothes, because Akutagawa using Rashomon to heal minute tears in his coat amuses me. I also just assume that when Atsushi loses a piece of himself the regeneration happens at the wound and thus the discarded piece just bounces off across the battlefield. Consequently after a particularly vicious fight, I like to imagine that the area is just lousy with bits and pieces of Atsushi and that it embarrasses the ever-living heck out of him. I make my own fun. Clearly.


	2. A Matter of Convenience

_"I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked."_  
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

 **-ooo-**

It was merely a matter of convenience.

At least, that was what Ryuunosuke had told himself as he'd followed him home, both of them so weary and worn out by the day's events that they were stumbling over their own feet. Occasionally, they'd lose the thread of consciousness from one step to the next and find themselves weaving and tipping into each other. He lost track of the number of times he'd been startled back to full wakefulness by the catch of a hand against his shoulder or the weight of the Man-Tiger's head falling against his arm.

He wasn't actually certain how far they had traveled or how long it had taken to reach his apartment building. Most of the journey had been lost in a blur of noise and tracking the occasional movement of blurry people in the darkness with a narrow glare. Those few hardy souls who had braved the darkness on whatever illicit business they were always seemed to sense his gaze, to step more lively as if they instinctively knew that there were far more dangerous predators about.

He had the idea that someone had tried to mug them at one point during their long trudge and the Man-Tiger had thrown them in the river… or perhaps he had, it wasn't quite certain and didn't wish to admit ignorance by asking.

When they'd finally stumbled into the brightly lit courtyard it had been a surprise to find the journey finally at an end. Enough so that it had shocked him to stillness and left him blinking dumbly at the entrance, unsure how they'd gotten there or why he'd agreed to come along in the first place or if he truly wanted to step any further out of the shadows into that buzzing artificial light.

"C'mon, I'm on the second floor," had been the Man-Tiger's response to his hesitation and then a warm hand had wrapped thoughtlessly around his own and jerked him back into motion.

His thoughts were slow and languid and the sudden jerk startled a cough free. He muffled the sound against the back of his free hand more out of habit than politeness. While he coughed, the Man-Tiger led him on a weaving path through the courtyard and up a set of stairs to the second floor. He hadn't even realized that he was still holding his hand until he'd released it to fumble his key from his pocket and jiggle it into the lock, muttering to himself as the key seemed to stick halfway through and needed to be coaxed forward one groove at a time.

His hand seemed colder for the lack of the Man-Tiger's grip and he shoved it in the pocket of his damp coat before he could do something stupid with it.

Eventually the door was opened and they both tumbled inside. He didn't bother to take more than the number of steps absolutely necessary to avoid blocking the door from closing before falling face down on the floor. He laid there, simply relieved to finally be able to stop moving, as the Man-Tiger kicked the door shut and fell down in a heap beside him.

For a long time, long enough that he was sure he'd started to doze off, there was only their labored breathing to fill the silence between them.

"There's..." Man-Tiger had begun, summoning him back to drowsy wakefulness as he paused to yawn hugely before he began to weave drunkenly through the clumsy process of pulling his laces loose and shoving out of his boots to toss them with heavy thunks just inside the door. It probably would have been more proper to put them outside, but it wasn't his house so he didn't see the point in caring what the Man-Tiger did with his shoes. "There's a spare blanket and a stuff in the closet if you want it."

He hadn't even bothered to dignify the comment with a response. Instead he'd simply turned his face away and huddled deeper inside his coat. His shoes were still on, but since his feet hadn't left the entryway he didn't really see the problem with it until he felt the Man-Tiger's hands settle against his ankles. Felt them carefully tugging loose laces and gently peeling back leather. He didn't move to help or hinder, though he did turn his head to watch with narrow, sleepy eyes.

The Man-Tiger yawned again, pausing briefly to blink puzzlement at the worn leather in his hands. "When'd you find your other shoe?"

"Didn't," he replied, voice muffled by the collar of his coat. "Different shoe."

"They look the same though."

"Work shoes are work shoes."

"So, you just have a bunch of the same shoes at home?"

He didn't bother to nod or respond. He'd been clear enough in his answer the first time and further conversation was a pointless waste of energy.

He managed to fumble one off and then the other, fingers grazing his stocking clad feet and lingering briefly before he set the boots neatly aside and flopped back on the floor beside him with a huff, arms and legs splayed out. "Are you okay?"

What a stupid question.

They'd been fighting over… he couldn't really remember what. Someone, a target with dark hair and a skittish nature, it hardly mattered as his assignment had been primarily to keep the Man-Tiger busy and out of the main skirmish. It hardly mattered why. He'd wanted the fight far more than he'd cared for the reason. It had been far too long since they'd fought with each other like that. He'd gotten better, they both had, or maybe they'd been working together enough that they were simply better at reading each other now, at matching blow to blow.

The impromptu battle had dragged on long after the target had escaped, after the city had turned dark, after everyone else from the Agency and the Port Mafia had taken their own skirmishes elsewhere. No one had come back to check on them, to try to stop them.

Which was just as well.

He still wasn't certain what had happened in the end, how things had turned out. Didn't particularly care either. It didn't concern him overly whether the Agency or the Port Mafia had come out on top. There would be other days and other battles and for every loss there was a win to be found just around the corner.

In the end, they'd only stopped when they'd both ended up falling off the bridge into the river. He remembered using Rashomon to slow their descent, remembered the Man-Tiger's limbs closing around him, flipping them about so that his body would take the worst of the inevitable impact.

Neither of them, unfortunately, were accomplished swimmers.

Not that it would have changed things, in all likelihood.

It wasn't as if they'd jumped into the river on purpose, after all.

In the end, he'd had to use Rashomon to craft an impromptu boat which had proved adequate at keeping them afloat but impossible to steer without tipping them back into the water. Which was how they'd ended up so far down river before they'd managed to finally paddle their way back to shore.

They'd managed to dry off a bit during the long, weary trudge to the Man-Tiger's apartment, but he could still feel the uncomfortable chafe of damp between his thighs, along the seams of his clothes and the back of his shirt and pants. Before they'd arrived at the apartment all his energy had been devoted to keeping himself upright and moving, but now that he was finally able to rest his body seemed to have remembered the cold of the river, the chill of the turning season that lingered in the air.

His long years below had exposed him to far worse than a little chill on the wind, a little damp in his clothes, but he'd grown softer in the years since. Years of coats and warm places and heavy blankets had spoiled him though his body remained as weak as it ever was.

He coughed weakly, closing his eyes, too tired to be annoyed by the Man-Tiger's unnecessary concern, too tired to answer it either.

"I don't think my clothes will fit you," he murmured, mostly to himself, his voice whisper soft in the darkness.

"You're short," he agreed just to hear the indignant squawk the comment was sure to illicit.

"No, you're just freakishly tall," Man-Tiger grumbled, but the comment did its job well enough in getting him to stand up, to move away into the apartment and leave him be. Leave him to shiver alone on the floor, to huddle in the damp of his coat and let exhaustion have its way with him despite the discomfort.

He had almost fallen asleep again when he heard the shift of fabric and creak of boards that heralded his return so at least he wasn't surprised when the Man-Tiger flopped back down beside him with a put upon sigh. "Here, you can wear this. I brought a towel and I turned the water heater on, but it'll take a while to heat up. So you'll have to wait if you want to shower."

He didn't want to take a shower anymore than he wanted to look at whatever it was the Man-Tiger had brought him.

If he pretended to be asleep he might just let him be.

He didn't like the idea of accepting the Man-Tiger's awkward overture of kindness. It was bad enough he'd so easily accepted his invitation and followed him home in the first place.

"C'mon," he coaxed, either not buying his act or having decided he didn't want wet clothes resting overlong against his floor.

A finger poked him in the head as if he wouldn't simply slice that finger off if weren't so tired. "Akutagawa, you're gonna make yourself sick."

He thought about telling him that that wasn't true.

That he'd slept in wetter, colder clothes and been fine, but that wasn't quite true either and lying there was getting more unpleasant by the moment.

He could feel the beginnings of another cough already stirring at the thought and shifted uncomfortably to try and relieve the building tickle of pressure.

Sometimes he could change position and the urge would fade like it had never been there.

Sometimes it just made the resulting cough that much worse in the end.

He registered the Man-Tiger's gasp before he realized that moving had brought the feel of rough, damp fabric to bear against his cheek. He opened his eyes reluctantly to find he'd brushed up against the side of the Man-Tiger's thigh. He rolled away onto his back, staring up at those wide eyes, cast into greys by the sparse light that filtered into the dark apartment through the curtained windows.

The atmosphere seemed heavier than it had been a moment before as if somehow opening his eyes had stolen all the air from the room and left them both at loose ends.

Man-Tiger had a length of light colored cloth crumbled in his hands. It looked thin, soft, worn from use.

"I'm not wearing your clothes."

Speaking fractured the strange tension as the Man-Tiger easily stumbled from staring at him with a wondering expression to glaring at him, fuming and indignant. "Well, it's not like I want you to wear my clothes, but yours are all wet!"

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'?" He squawked, volume and pitch increasing steadily as he spoke. "I can tell they're still wet, mine are still wet so yours have to be because you're wearing like twelve layers and you're still shivering!"

He wasn't wearing twelve layers, but he realized belated that he had not been incorrect about the shivering at least. He must be more tired than he thought if he hadn't noticed the fine tremble lingering in his limbs, settling his coat to rustling around him.

That didn't mean he had any intention of removing his clothing.

Especially not in front of _him_.

This had been a mistake.

He should have gone to his own apartment. It would have been a longer journey, probably, but at least there… at least there he would have….

"Okay," Man-Tiger murmured suddenly, looking away suddenly. "I'll help you get home. Where do you live?"

He was certain he hadn't said anything aloud.

But the very thought of how far this place was from the little apartment he shared with Gin was exhausting. He didn't know the exact distance, but he knew they were in the city and not particularly close to the port.

The Man-Tiger frowned into his silence, ire rising again as he took his lack of response for dismissal of the idea. "Is it really that big a deal if I know where you live? You know where I live now, so..."

It was.

It wasn't.

"That's because you're an idiot."

And he was.

Only an idiot would let an enemy into his home.

Not that he considered his own apartment so sentimentally. It was part of the reason why he and Gin had decided to share an apartment in the first place. Simple convenience. It was merely a place to sleep, to store the few things they owned, little more than that. In the end it was really nothing more than that and could be just as easily abandoned.

Still, he wasn't certain how he felt about it, about the idea of taking him there. If he thought too long about it, he was certain that he could picture the Man-Tiger invading his space, poking through his things, filling up the silence that always seemed so suffocating because he and Gin were rarely ever there at the same time.

"The Port Mafia already knew where you lived," he added, because it was probably true.

"Fine!" He huffed, leaping to his feet and breaking the meander of his thoughts. "That's just… fine. That's fine. Just… just… go home by yourself or stay here in your wet clothes. Whatever you want to do is just _fine_. I don't care."

He stomped across the room as if he still had plenty of energy to spare.

It was exhausting just watching him as he disappeared into what he assumed was probably the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

The neighbors would probably complain about the noise.

It was late.

And now he was alone.

The robe and towel had been left behind... though they'd probably simply been forgotten in his rush to leave the room. Still, it would be his own fault for leaving them there. If he hadn't wanted him to use them, he should have taken them with him.

They smelled liked springtime and cheap soap. The towel was as rough beneath his fingers as the robe was soft. It was strange to imagine the Man-Tiger purchasing something like that robe for himself. He wondered where he had gotten it, if it had been a gift. If it were something he treasured.

It made him feel strange and uncertain to think of wearing something he'd probably worn himself. Something he likely valued.

But if he hadn't wanted him to do so, he shouldn't have offered it in the first place.

He wished he'd never invited him to follow him home.

He wished he hadn't agreed.

But it was too late to go back now.

Too late by half.

He was cold and still quite damp.

It probably would be more convenient to just stay.

Just until morning.

Just until his clothes were dry.

It wasn't as if he _wanted_ to.

It was simply more convenient and regrets were pointless.

He probably would catch a cold if he didn't take care to avoid it.

He could almost taste the bite of winter in the air, after all, even if the Man-Tiger's laundry still held the lingering scent of spring.

Sitting up took far more effort than it should have so by the time he'd worked his way free of his coat he was already panting, occasionally coughing against the back of his hand as he pulled the cravat free, set it aside and went to work on the buttons of his shirt. It seemed to take too long, far too long, but eventually he managed, still shivering as he made a half-hearted attempt to dry his chest and arms before donning the pale blue robe.

His pants were more problematic, fingers dumb and clumsy as they fumbled against the buckle and buttons, slipped free the catches and wiggled free, shoving the damp pile of fabric aside and knotting the robe around his waist.

He was still cold as he lay back down on the floor, curling in around his knees as he continued to shiver and shake. He felt strange, unsettled, though he wasn't altogether certain if that feeling was due to the cold or the voluntary loss of the familiar weight of his coat.

He heard the sound of water running behind the door.

He wondered if the water was warm.

At some point he must have fallen asleep because eventually he woke. The world was bleary and he was still too tired to make the effort to bother trying to determine what had woken him.

He was warmer and the room seemed darker, heavier, but his head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton and he couldn't quite think through it enough to determine why. He could hear the soft purring breath of the Man-Tiger nearby. Strangely familiar though he'd only heard him sleep once before and that day beneath the bridge when they'd fought themselves to exhaustion against a common foe seemed to belong to another life.

He would need to take care to avoid bridges in the future.

They never led to anything good.

The rustle of blankets was loud in the quiet darkness of the apartment.

"Man-Tiger?" He asked, unsure why he'd bothered to call for him even as he formed the familiar syllables in a voice that felt and sounded as rough as cheap sackcloth.

"Akutagawa," he yawned, sleep-heavy and far closer than he expected. A hand brushed against his hair, clumsy and slow, fingers pulling at the tangles there as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I'm glad you decided to stay."

He didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't.

Minutes passed and eventually the Man-Tiger dozed off again, fingers falling to stillness while still caught in his hair, rough fingertips brushing against his scalp. He thought of moving, of extracting himself from that hold, of finding his clothes and retreating from this place altogether. But in the end, it all seemed like too much effort.

It was more convenient to stay, after all. More convenient to allow himself to fall back into the weary embrace of exhaustion, to turn his face into that unfamiliar touch and allow that warm hand to remain a strangely welcome comfort against his skin as he drifted back to sleep.


	3. The Naming of Cats - A Lack of Wisdom

_"It's poor judgment', said Grandpa 'to call anything by a name. We don't know what a hobgoblin or a vampire or a troll is. Could be lots of things. You can't heave them into categories with labels and say they'll act one way or another. That'd be silly. They're people. People who do things. Yes, that's the way to put it. People who *do* things."_

\- Ray Bradbury, The October Country

 **-ooo-**

 _Come in, Akutagawa!_

The message was scrawled in thick black ink across the note taped to the Man-Tiger's door.

He shivered, ducking a little further into the relative warmth of his jacket as the wind blew snow in his face and ruffled his hair as he continued to frown at the note as if doing so might make it burst into flame or perhaps make it less ostentatious or at the very least a less violent shade of _pink_.

It didn't.

 _"Do you want to come back to mine?"_

The second time the Man-Tiger had asked that question of him, he'd done so while looking away, scuffing his shoe against the curb, restless fingers twisting the file folder in his hands this way and that.

It had been a few weeks since their last fight, a few weeks since the first and last time the Man-Tiger had uttered those words as they both stood damp and exhausted at the river's edge. It had been convenient, reasonable at the time though he'd come to regret it after, thoughts flitting back too frequently over the awkwardness of the stilted apologies and grudging gratitude they'd exchanged the following morning.

They'd met on a bench in a small park nestled in a cozy residential neighborhood between the port and the Agency's office at Dazai-san's request to exchange information.

The Man-Tiger frowned down at the contents of the folder, flipping back and forth through pages incessantly, "But I don't…"

Ryuunosuke frowned down at the file the Man-Tiger had brought him, neatly typed and color coded and completely useless as it told him nothing he didn't already know.

"This is all stuff we already know," the Man-Tiger lamented, slapping the file closed, an echo of his own irritation in his voice. "Did you learn anything new?"

"No," he replied, closing his own file and handing it back.

"Why'd he have us come all the way out here to talk about stuff we already know?" The Man-Tiger tossed the files down onto the bench between them and melted into a slouch so exaggerated that it seemed as if he was just going to slither off and flop over onto the ground below at any moment. " _Why?_ "

He didn't know the answer to that. He'd long ago given up trying to puzzle out why he did anything he did.

Unsure what else to do, he retrieved the file he'd brought and stood, only a little surprised when the Man-Tiger huffed a sigh and followed suit. They walked together in silence to the park entrance and it was just when he was turning to go that the Man-Tiger blurted out that question.

"Do you want to come back to mine?"

He paused the moment he spoke, but it had taken him an awkwardly long time to realize that there was no one else around and so he must have been speaking to him.

"Yours?" He'd asked, glancing back at him to find him looking away, scuffing his shoe against the curb, restless fingers twisting the file folder in his hands this way and that.

"My apartment, I mean," he mumbled, still looking away.

Neither of them were injured, he was tired from a day spent running errands around town, but not so tired that he couldn't make his own way home.

There was no obvious reason for the invitation and yet there it was, hanging in the air between them as inappropriate and unexpected in the moment as pornography in a teashop.

"Why?"

"I don't have anything else to do today. Dazai-san said I could just go home after and I just thought it would be nice to, um, cards. To play cards. If you want to."

He didn't.

But he'd found himself nodding assent anyway. Gin was on assignment with some of the others and his apartment would be chilled and silent, empty and still as a tomb.

So, for the second time, he'd followed the Man-Tiger's apartment.

It was still small and neat and generally unremarkable.

They'd sat on the floor playing a card game filled with rules that kept changing on the pretext of the Man-Tiger having forgotten about them until they became pertinent. By the time they'd finished playing it was already full dark outside.

The Man-Tiger had crowed his victory over him with a wide grin as if beating him were some great feat worthy of celebration.

Which was, of course, completely ridiculous.

He still didn't fully understand all the rules and he was almost certain the Man-Tiger had made up the entire game on the fly just to vex him.

Yet he'd still accepted the invitation to play a second round which had run much longer than the first since they'd spent much of it arguing over the rules while drinking weak tea and sharing a packet of biscuits between them.

By the time they'd finished the second round, which he'd apparently managed to win though he still wasn't quite certain how, the Man-Tiger had been yawning hugely and had been quick to inform him that he could stay, if he wanted. He'd been just as quick to offer his own futon even as he shaken his head and pushed to his feet to stumble out the door towards home with a mumbled thank you for the game.

The apartment had been as cold and still and dark as he'd expected when he arrived, but he hadn't had much time to care about such things as he'd collapsed into bed without bothering to do more than toe off his boots in the entryway. His coat had been warm around him and smelled vaguely of the Man-Tiger's terrible tea.

The third time he'd visited the Man-Tiger's apartment had been after another fight, this time against a mutual enemy rather than each other and he'd bled all over his floor and most of his blankets while the Man-Tiger wound gauze around his arm and complained, loudly and at great length, about how he should have just let him take him back to the agency instead.

He had eventually given up that losing battle and insisted he talk to him instead.

"Talk about what?" He'd asked, because it seemed like a sensible enough request even if his thoughts all seemed to stumble over the idea and face plant against the vowels before he could quite grasp the why.

And that hadn't made much sense at all.

"I don't know, anything? Just... I think you should stay awake."

"Isn't that for concussions?"

"I don't know, but you've lost a lot of blood and I just-"

"Not so much," he commented, staring down at the dark of his coat puddled around him. He must have taken it off, but he couldn't quite recall doing so. His hands and the Man-Tiger's were both dyed dark and sticky with blood and the bandages he'd been winding painstakingly around his forearm were already red. "Stitches," he observed, staring at the red seeping up through the layers of white fabric.

The Man-Tiger looked back up, startled, as if the word had bitten him. His eyes were wide, almost comical, and his face was too close and too pale, "What?"

"The wound. It needs stitches," he replied, every word a chore.

"I told you we should have gone to the agency," he squawked. "I don't know how to- I can't- I... what are you doing?!'

So _loud_.

"Useless," he breathed, swaying as he pushed away from the bloodstained floor and the Man-Tiger's unnecessary, oppressive concern with the vague, half-formed intention of stumbling home. He had a sewing kit in the kitchen for just such occasions. "Do it myself."

He didn't remember falling, but he did remember the impact of his forehead against a bony shoulder, the catch of fingers in his hair, the pressure of a hand at his waist supporting his weight as it were a small thing.

Warm.

The Man-Tiger was always so warm or, perhaps, he was simply always cold. He wasn't sure, but it was comfortable there and the panicked rasp of his surname was of little consequence when he was so tired.

He'd woken later to an ache in his arm and the Man-Tiger's glower inches away from his face, shadows like bruises beneath his eyes.

"Good. You're awake. Your friend is coming to pick you up."

"Friend?" He repeated and the word came out rough as he turned the word over in his mind and found it made no more sense after a moment of contemplation than it had coming out of the Man-Tiger's mouth.

"Higuchi-san. She called while you were sleeping and I told her you were a stubborn, stupid jerk and she's coming to pick you up so someone can redo your stupid stitches properly."

He frowned drawing his arm up to stare at the dark uneven lines scattered across the pale of his skin like ants at a picnic. The thread was thick and sturdy and though it wasn't pretty it was serviceable. "It's fine like this," he murmured finally, dropping his arm back between them with a sigh and letting his eyes fall shut to avoid the Man-Tiger's surprise. "Tell her not to bother."

"You tell her not to bother! She won't believe you said that, _I_ don't even believe you said that and I just listened to you say it. Plus, she threatened to make me into a rug if I didn't tell her where you were so she could come pick you up."

"You'd make a terrible rug. Too loud."

He could picture the scrunch of the Man-Tiger's face perfectly, the enthusiastic twitch of annoyance at the corner of his eye. The way his mouth must have twisted into a pout as he chose to ignore the jab.

"And what do you mean tell her not to bother?"

"I can make my own way home."

"Don't be dumb," the Man-Tiger scoffed. "You passed out on me and I had to clean up like a bucket of your blood off the floor. You shouldn't go anywhere on your own yet."

"Later."

"What?"

"I'll go later."

The Man-Tiger fell silent and it would be delightful if it weren't so sudden or so unexpected. He cracks open one eye to peer at his red-faced, slack-jawed expression and closes it again as he sees the beginnings of a smile crawl across his lips.

"Okay," his voice sounds strange, shaky, but he can hear the smile in it. "That's… okay, but you still have to call and tell her otherwise she'll probably come over anyway and skin me on principle."

He gropes half-heartedly for his phone, not particularly surprised when the cool, familiar plastic is pressed into his hand, "here."

He presses the button that auto-dials her number by feel and slides the phone under his head.

Higuchi's voice is abrupt and harried when she answers, not bothering even with the most cursory of pleasantries. "He had better be-"

"It's fine," he cut in since she obviously thought it was the Man-Tiger on the other end of the line. "Don't do anything unnecessary. Contact me only if you must."

There was a beat of silence.

"He said you were wounded," she inquired finally, her voice was uncharacteristically cautious, hesitant. It was irritating. "That he wasn't sure he'd done the stitches properly."

He frowned at the phone; he'd never enjoyed repeating himself. "It's fine."

"If you're certain," she replied, hesitant again and he pressed the button to disconnect the call. He'd said what needed to be said, anything more would be… too much. He could barely sort out his motivations for himself, he had no desire to share his confusion with his subordinate.

By the time he pushed the phone aside he realized that the Man-Tiger had been uncharacteristically silent for a surprisingly long period. He opened his eyes to find that at some point while his attention was on Higuchi's voice over the line, the Man-Tiger had dozed off, cheek pillowed against his bent arm, mouth gone slack. His breathing was soft and even and far too close as it whispered warm across his knuckles.

He sighed, scooting a bit further away before settling down and following suit, mildly surprised by how easy it was to sleep beside him even without the overwhelming weight of injury or exhaustion to pull him down.

He'd woken next to the morning sun shining bright and annoying through the window and the mumble of the Man-Tiger's voice, pitched low and still rough with sleep. "No, it's fine. I'm just tired. No, don't come. Definitely don't. No, I don't want _coffee_. Stop looking for an excuse to barge in."

He cracked one eye open to find the Man-Tiger still lying nearby, staring at him as if he'd been doing so for hours.

It was a little disconcerting.

"No, I need to go. Stop, I'm gonna go now. Don't come over," he warned again as he pressed the button to end his call and turned towards him with the tentative beginnings of a smile. "Hungry?"

"Thirsty," he said roughly, pulling the blanket up over his mouth to muffle a cough.

"Okay," the Man-Tiger replied, pushing his own blankets aside to pad barefoot into the kitchen.

It had been almost too simple to fall into the habit after that day, comfortable, like slipping into a warm bath.

The fourth time he'd half-carried the Man-Tiger back after he'd over-used his power to the point of exhaustion by healing far too many wounds in too brief a time. They'd both ended up collapsed in a heap just inside the door and he'd fallen asleep with the Man-Tiger snuffling against his ear, his weight warm and heavy across his back.

The fifth time they'd been surrounded by files Dazai-san had insisted they absolutely had to go through to research the group that had been attempting to gain a foothold in the city purchasing some of the Port Mafia smaller holdings.

They hadn't found anything of use and the next day Dazai-san had insisted it was because the Man-Tiger had taken the wrong boxes to sort through.

"He's lying," the Man-Tiger had grumbled, but he'd known that without being told by the sly smile on Dazai-san's face.

After that... the visits had begun to blend together.

He'd lost track of the number of times his feet had found their way to that place, to that floor, to that door, seeking out the Man-Tiger's company whenever the invitation was offered in the weeks and months after that second visit.

It was convenience, sometimes, necessity, often, but not always.

He didn't remember the first time he'd come there without intending to, the first time he'd slumped against his door to bang out a tired knock after a long night of work, but he did remember the way the Man-Tiger had smiled at him, a little surprised, but strangely pleased and obliging even though all he did was shove a box of biscuits at him, stumble inside, curl up on his floor and fall asleep.

He wasn't at all sure why he'd come here then or why he came now.

Or why the Man-Tiger had seemed to expect that he would.

He scowled at the presumptuous stationery again.

It remained a smug, bright pink reminder that his presence here had become a too common occurrence.

One that was apparently disconcertingly welcome.

It was a dangerous addiction, this craving for the warmth and hospitality of this little room, of the man who lived within.

The door was never locked and the Man-Tiger never seemed bothered by his showing up at odd hours and passing out on his floor.

He had woken more than once facedown on the Man-Tiger's floor in much the same position he'd stumbled though the door and fallen into.

Sometimes, most times, he would wake to find a blanket had been draped over him.

Always he would find the Man-Tiger curled up nearby. Never close enough to touch, but wherever he laid down, the Man-Tiger always seemed to position his futon near enough that more than once he'd opened his eyes to find himself staring at that pale pinched face, brow furrowed by some inconvenient dream.

He'd reached out once, just once, to smooth his finger across his forehead in an impulsive attempt to sooth the tension away.

He didn't like to think about how he'd shifted into the touch, how the whimper of sound that had slipped from his sleeping lips had made him feel queasy and warm. The way it had made his hand tremble and his breath draw sharp and quick in his chest.

He'd never done it again.

After that, whenever he woke, he'd always stumbled to his feet and dragged himself out and towards his own place, leaving a thank you jotted on the paper the Man-Tiger kept on his little desk and locking the door behind him even though the Man-Tiger had never seen fit to lock it when they were there.

They still fought often as their organizations were at odds as frequently as not and Boss Pervert had taken to sending him to deal with the Dazai-san's Agency more and more frequently in recent months.

He does not like to dwell on thoughts of why.

Why he has been given simultaneously more to do and less. Why his assignments have thrown him into the Man-Tiger's path again and again as both ally and foe. It felt as if he was being tested though no one had said as much. Still, he had seen the sharp attention of Drunk Hat's gaze that warned caution whenever they passed each other.

He could tell by Boss Pervert's empty smile and dead eyes that he is meant to think of all these assignments as promotion, as a show of good faith, of trust, of an attempt to cater to his interests, but where Dazai-san's acknowledgement had eased an ache within him, Boss Pervert's acknowledgement makes his skin crawl.

It made him anxious, but he doesn't know how to put that anxiety to good use, to form it into something he could actually _use_ rather than something that simply makes him feel paranoid and uncertain, so he'd shoved it down, away, to be ignored until it could be honed into something practical and more easily defined.

In the end it all just served to make him almost grateful for those precious few assignments that sent him elsewhere, that allowed him the mindless relief of indiscriminant slaughter. It's easier to take, to kill, to steal from strangers than familiar foes. The thrill of fighting the Man-Tiger is better than all those things, but it seems to grow more needlessly complicated with every passing day.

With ever night that leads him to this familiar apartment, to sleep in a nest of borrowed blankets and the increasingly familiar comfort he finds there.

There'd been no more reason to come there this night than there ever was.

He'd been on an assignment that had run late and long and he'd retreated to the Man-Tiger's apartment with a packet of biscuits from the convenience store that he'd taken to keeping on hand. He had blood on his shoes and the beginnings of what would no doubt be an interesting bruise across his cheekbone. He hadn't made the decision to go there, not consciously, but he'd still found himself trudging through the light snow into the familiar courtyard, the obnoxious orange light of the lamps overhead, flickering and buzzing as he climbed the slippery stairs to find that note taped to his door.

He still knocked, as was his custom, but when the Man-Tiger hadn't answered, he'd taken the note from the door and slipped it into the pocket of his coat before unfastening his bloodstained boots, setting them beside the door and slipping inside to find the apartment warm but empty.

He frowned, mildly annoyed by how stupid it was of him to leave it unlocked on the off chance that he'd come by.

Idiot cat.

He ignored the guest slippers and instead padded into the kitchen in bloodstained stockings to wash the filth from his hands.

It would be easier to clear the blood he trekked across the floor from than wood than it would have been to clean it from the slippers.

Probably.

By the time the water finally ran clear and he'd used a towel to clear up the blood he'd tracked across the floor he was shivering again and he settled his hands in his pockets to dry before sliding back against the wall near the door to wait for the Man-Tiger to return.

 _"Again."_

 _It hurts to breathe._

 _"Again. You're going to be the mafia's dog, so you'd better be a useful one that knows when to bark and cower and kill."_

 _He glares up and he's still standing over him, watching him as if he'll never be enough._

"Akutagawa?"

There's a hand on his shoulder and a familiar voice in his ear, far too kind and cautious to belong to Dazai-san. Far too tentative in the asking to belong to anyone but him really, but at the moment of waking he's still too caught in the lingering pain and exhaustion of memory to connect with that knowledge in any meaningful way. By the time he does he's already lashed out, Rashomon spinning to manic, panicked life around him, lunging to protect him from a past he doesn't wish to change.

He opened his eyes to the darkened room, heaving unsteady breaths as he withdrew his power from where several points of the living cloth have pierced the Man-Tiger's pale shirt, had punched through to the thin body within. The spill of blood that followed seemed black in the darkness, dribbling down his chest as the fabric falls limb, fluttering back to the ground around him, the energy that animated it dying to silence and regret. His heart is in his throat as he forces himself to ease further along the wall towards the door, to move away from the boy kneeling in front of him looking down at his chest with that idiotic expression of surprise.

"You shouldn't have woken me," he murmured, glancing away, pulling his knees up against his chest, uncomfortable. He can't keep the accusatory note from his voice, not that he'd want to even if he could.

He does _not_ feel guilty.

He had warned him before about waking him just in case.

It was the Man-Tiger's own fault that he was incapable of listening.

The world outside the windows was dark even through the fog caused by the too warm air inside and the frigid winter cold outside making the orange glow of the street lamps beyond seemed soft and unnatural were it cast long shadows across the Man-Tiger's modest apartment.

"You were having a nightmare," he answered as if that explained anything, as if he were meant to understand with only those words to guide him. The Man-Tiger's ability had already activated to heal him, a soft, whirling blue glow that illuminated the dark of the room as it swirled around him.

"All the more reason," he replied, on unfamiliar ground and unsure what else to say.

He ignored his admonishment, of course, sighing as he twisted around to flop back to lie beside him, boneless and loose, his head landing a scant inch from Ryuunosuke's knee as if he hadn't even noticed the proximity.

His wounds had already closed, but the holes in his shirt remained, rimmed with the blotchy, damp dark of blood. He fingered one of the holes, frowning thoughtfully, "I go through a lot of shirts when I'm with you."

That was true.

After all this wasn't the first time he'd violently startled and lashed out when the Man-Tiger was too loud or moved too fast, he just usually managed to dodge the worst of the potential damage. The loss of control was as embarrassing as ever, but the Man-Tiger hadn't ever seemed to be particularly bothered by his eccentricities.

Which made him a uniquely ridiculous person.

He was the one who had invited him in that first day, after all, and every night he'd spent there since.

He had no one to blame but himself for the consequence of his actions, just as he would have no one to blame but himself if one day Boss Pervert decided to dispose of him for his.

Ryuunosuke slowly pushed himself to his feet, frowning down at the man-tiger's eyes, at the way they always seem to gleam in the dark of the night.

It was really his own fault.

Still.

He didn't like owing people things, especially him.

"Don't look at me," he warned, working loose the buttons on his coat and shrugging it off his shoulders.

The Man-Tiger made a scandalized noise and leapt to his feet, scrambling about indecisively for a moment before finally whirling around to face the window, "W-w-w-w-what are you doing?"

He frowned at his back, ignoring the question as irrelevant. "Take off your shirt and give it to me."

"My _shirt_?" His voice was high, squeaking on some ridiculous panic.

"Yes," he replied, ignoring the heat warming his throat, his face, as he kept his focus on removing his ascot, unfastening the tiny, shiny buttons on his shirt.

It wasn't weird.

It _wasn't_.

It was _practical_.

He simply didn't wish to owe him anything.

If he felt as if he owed him than it would ruin this. These quiet moments. It would make it feel like obligation. So he needed to balance the scales between them and he certainly wasn't about to give him money or buy him a new shirt.

It would attract unwanted attention to this strange nameless thing between them that he hadn't even told Gin about.

Not that there's anything to tell.

Not that any of this meant anything particular or noteworthy.

Not that they were anything more than strangers who'd fallen into step together.

Theirs was a fragile partnership built on convenience and changing circumstance and it might fall apart at any moment.

He would not miss it when it was gone, but he could value it while it lasted.

He sets each article carefully aside, folded neatly, precisely, not because he particularly cared whether the fabric wrinkled, but because it gave him something to think about besides the fact that he was laying himself bare in front of someone who was still in many ways his enemy. It was… unsettling.

His breath caught in his throat and he coughed weakly, muffling the sound against the back of his hand.

"Okay?" He asked, voice soft.

He hated that tone.

As if he were something weak, something to be coddled, something to be pitied.

He caught himself halfway through a shrug before clearing his throat and offering a muttered, "It's fine."

Even thought it wasn't.

He undid the fastenings at his cuffs and slipped his shirt off, draping it across the low table that served as the Man-Tiger's desk with the rest of the clothing he'd removed. He didn't shiver, but it was a close thing. The apartment was warm, but it had been a long time since he'd been this defenseless in front of anyone.

Even longer since he'd done so of his own volition.

The tiger was standing still in front of the balcony doors, his suspenders hanging loose and limp around his waist. His ruined shirt clasped, crumpled, in one fist and held out to the side, wavering slightly as he trembled.

It almost made him smile.

It was still a strange, unfamiliar novelty to be trusted.

Much less to be trusted by someone he had tried to kill on more than one occasion.

Much less this idiot who regularly allowed him into his home for no good reason and slept close to him as if it were nothing special.

It might always be a novelty for so long as it lasted.

He still wasn't certain that he agreed that he had earned that level of trust… or any level of trust for that matter. What had happened between them, when they fought together… shouldn't have mattered so much, shouldn't have changed things between them at all much less so completely, but there was no point in denying that it had been the start of something like understanding.

And it was comfortable here. Comfortable breathing this air, sleeping in this space in a way nothing ever had been.

It wouldn't last, nothing did, but he was hesitant to be the one to break their unspoken truce, to be the one to flinch and retreat after so long.

He did not look at the tiger's back.

Did not stare overlong at the scars there.

They were not his to look at, not his to touch.

Instead, he touched cool fingers to the back of Atsushi's too warm hand, unsurprised when Atsushi yelped and dropped the shirt, instantly scrambling to snatch it back with a flurry of inarticulate sounds that might have been curses from anyone else.

"Oh, um, hi," he murmured, staring up at him from his knees, ruined, rumpled shirt held between them like a shield. "Sorry. I… sorry, you're…"

His face was so red.

"It's fine."

He's not sure that it is, but he says it anyway, ignoring the queasy flutter that rolls weakly through him.

He knows how he looks.

The years below had taken their toll, exacted their price upon his weak body, and the years since had done little to make it up. Training and the few intense battles he's engaged in have made his pale chest rough with scars and bruises. It has not improved matters, though he's had little enough reason for it to be an issue over the years.

He's not altogether certain why he's dwelling on it now.

He reaches out to pluck his shirt from his grip and slip it on. It's tight in the shoulders and still warm and he tried very hard not to think about that as he closed his eyes for a moment to get a feel for the weave of the cloth before activating his ability with a whisper.

The fabric snaps and howls around him, stretching and biting at the air before settling down again as he allows the ability to fade, to fold back inside him. When he opens his eyes, the tiger's shirt is still stained with blood, but whole once more and the Man-Tiger is staring at him with those wide, wide eyes again. It makes him uncomfortable. He removes the shirt quickly, shoving it back into his hands, a little annoyed when it almost falls again before he manages to grab it.

"That-That was amazing!"

His smile was too bright, too warm, like his shirt had been. It makes him feel strange, awkward so he turns quickly back to his own clothes, donning each item with swift, jerky motions. "I didn't know you could do something like that with your power."

His frown deepens, Dazai-san's words echoing in his head and spilling from his lips reflexively, "It's a useless power."

"It isn't!" And Atsushi is there in front of him again, ducking around him, too close, shirt on but hanging open and his breath catches in his throat. "It's a really great power. You're really… you…"

They're close, too close and he feels warm, because of that sudden praise, his chest strangely tight. It isn't as if he cares what the tiger thinks of him. It isn't as if it matters at all, but there's something trapped in the space between them that he can't quite make sense of.

Something that feels like Rashomon, some monster snapping and consuming the distance until he can feel the warmth of his breath across his cheek.

His stomach churns with something that feels nothing and everything like hunger.

He should say something, but there are no words, no name he can call to bring it forth or banish it, to clarify it into something he can understand.

"You're really, um, great," the Man-Tiger finished awkwardly, face bright red as he spun off towards the kitchen.

He's left staring after him, feeling the cold so much more acutely than he had before.

The tiger thought he was… great?

He's not sure how to feel about that.

He's not sure why he's here.

Again.

He should never have come.

"Do you, um, you're… a-are you hungry? I-I could make something," Man-Tiger glancing about frantically, as if desperate for some distraction.

That, at least, is a sentiment he can understand.

"No, thanks," he replied, turning back to the business of dressing. "You only know how to make chazuke."

"So? I like chazuke. Maybe if I knew what you liked I could learn to make that too," the Man-Tiger grouched, settling on running water and putting the kettle on with a huff.

"I like you."

The words are out hanging there in the space between them and even though he was the one who said them, they feel like they belong to someone else.

They feel like an uninvited guest and now he feels that way as well.

He shouldn't be here.

He should never have come here in the first place, not this night or any of the nights before. It had always been a poor idea. Boss Pervert did not encourage connections outside the mafia. Especially not with the agency… Dazai-san's agency… he should never have….

"Don't just run away when you're the one saying stuff like that!" The Man-Tiger snapped and he hadn't realized he was halfway to the door until the words brought him up short.

"Man-Tiger…."

"Atsushi!" The stomp of bare feet against the mat and then he's looking down into the Man-Tiger's face who is staring up at him with that strange constipated expression he gets sometimes. He says the word as if he doesn't know it, as if he hadn't known the shape of those syllables hours, days, before he'd ever laid eyes on the actual article. "At-su-shi! If you like me, call me by my name for once! Not _Man-Tiger_ , I mean, I know I'm that too, but that's not who I am. I don't go around calling you…. "

He stalls scrambling for a nickname, face screwed up in a frown. "Um… coat guy? Shadow jacket? But, I mean, it's not just the jacket, right? It's everything you wear, so… space eating thingy? Monster clothes?"

"Shut up."

"Huh? Don't tell me to shut up! You _like_ me!"

"I take it back."

"You can't take it back! You said it and you can't take it back, because I won't forget it and I… I like you too, so… so you can't take it back. I won't let you. Just…"

His face was so red, his cheeks blown out and his eyes averted, fingers catching and tugging at his hanging suspenders.

His name.

How was he supposed to say it when he couldn't even bring himself to think it?

I like you.

Why had he said that?

Why had _he_ said it back?

Why was he...?

There's a tap at the window and it startles them both.

The Man-Tiger is the one to draw the curtain open and then step aside to gesture him forward, "I think it's for you."

Gin stands there, blurry behind the window fog and dressed for work, looking distinctly out of place against the drift of snow and the flicker of too orange light.

Gin meets his gaze steadily, but he can see the taint of fear in them.

He knew what they must look like, clothes disheveled, futon a mess. He's not unaware of these things, but he's never been good at explaining himself and Gin has never asked him to.

"You've been requested," Gin murmured, voice muffled, fingers tracing characters across the glass for a moment, pressing fingers against the reflection of his face or their own and then Gin is gone, melting back into the night as if they were never there at all.

"I have to go," he commented, letting the curtain fall back as he buttoned his shirt with quick, shaky motions.

Gin wouldn't have come if it weren't important, if there wasn't a danger in not. Gin knew better than to take such risks. That was the promise they'd made when Gin had joined against his wishes, decided to live this life. They would only be siblings during their brief time off periods so his decisions would never impact Gin unnecessarily. Nails that stick out in the mafia were quick to be smashed down.

Gin wouldn't have violated that promise without reason.

"Oh… okay, I… okay. Thanks for, um, coming and for the, uh, shirt. For fixing it, I mean."

He nodded, uncomfortable.

He was dressed. There was no reason to stay and yet he lingered, uncertain, the beginnings of that name stalled on his tongue.

They liked each other.

What did that even _mean_?

"Um. Call if you need… I don't know. Or come by, I…" He reached out to fiddle with the collar of his coat, rough fingers brushing his throat.

"What are we doing?"

The tiger yanked his fingers back as if the words hand singed his skin, "What? I w-wasn't doing anything! You-You're the one who comes here, you know!"

"You're the one who leaves the door unlocked," he replied, tension snapping the words terse and irritable from his tongue. His brow furrowed, confused as much by the overreaction as by how annoyed he was that the Man-Tiger had stopped fiddling about with his collar. It had been…

"Because I know you're coming!" He snapped, throwing his arms wide.

The Man-Tiger's chest was still bare, the shirt hanging open, half-buttoned and his skin was lined with pale scars.

His fingers reached forward to close around that cloth without his permission, sliding across the smooth fabric to join button to hole. It was easy to ignore the Man-Tiger's dramatics when he had something else to focus on. He refastened the buttons one by one to make the temptation to touch those scars, that brown skin, fall away, but his fingers lingered even as he fastened the last, exerted gentle pressure against the rise and fall of his chest.

A soft noise, almost a whimper, drew his gaze back up to study the Man-Tiger's face.

"I'm… Akutagawa, I'm…"

Warm fingers brushed his cheek, catching at the pale tips of his hair, sliding it back to hook behind his ear.

The touch was gentle, but it made him feel… fragile, breakable, in a way he hadn't felt in years. As if his legs had turned to water beneath him, unsteady and turbulent as the churn of the ocean.

He broke away into a stream of coughing, his chest aching, blood dotting the back of his hand, easily wiped away against his coat.

A reminder that he was weak.

He should leave.

He should never have been here at all.

This night or any other.

No good would come from this.

Whatever it was.

No good had ever come from wanting.

"Sorry for the trouble. Good evening," he says it quickly, quietly, taking refuge in the unfamiliar distance afforded by such useless pleasantries.

"Wait!"

He stops and turns and maybe the Man-Tiger wasn't expecting it, because he's hurrying to catch up and suddenly he's close, too close, and he inhales sharply and flinches back just before he might have slammed into him.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologizes, too quickly and he's breathing too fast for the brief distance he's crossed.

He waits, expectant, but the Man-Tiger just stands there uncertain, shifting nervously from foot to foot, fingers fidgeting awkwardly at his sides.

Those words still linger between them, permeating every moment with an inescapable pressure like the pregnant pause before a storm breaks.

They're like travelers lost on a dark road neither certain how to move forward or how to move back, uncertain which direction would be the better, safer choice, but knowing there's a choice to be made, that they can't linger stagnant in this moment forever, but unable to commit to the possibility of being wrong.

"Next time," he murmured finally, hesitantly, shifting his gaze away from the Man-Tiger to the orange light flickering through his pale curtains. "You could make chazuke."

"I thought you didn't like it," he replied, easing closer, his voice heavy with suspicion.

He shrugged, uncomfortable, studying the cuff of his jacket, how it had been made stiff by dried blood. He'd need to tend to it once he returned to his apartment.

"Okay," the Man-Tiger commented finally, the suspicion easing into something lighter, warmer, more cheerful. "Next time."

He nodded, forcing himself to turn, to twist the handle and pull the door open, turning the lock as he stepped out into the night beyond.

"Good night, Akutagawa."

It was said so softly as he pulled the door closed that he almost missed it.

His fingers clenched white with strain against the handle as he shut the door behind him with a snap, "Good night..."

He was halfway down the stairs, coat pulled close against the chill of winter air and the falling snow, when his breath puffed white and whisper soft around the bittersweet taste of that unfamiliar word on his tongue.

Just this once.

Just for himself.

"Atsushi."


	4. The Naming of Cats - Terrible as Death

_"I don't know how to answer. I know what I think, but words in the head are like voices underwater. They are distorted."_  
\- Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

 **-ooo-**

He kept his lips pressed tightly together on the walk from the Man-Tiger's place to the train station as if by doing so he could trap the memory of the shape of his name between them, a keepsake only he could feel.

It hadn't meant anything, had just been a strange impulse, a moment of insanity to say it in the first place, but it had felt… nice.

Revoltingly sentimental, but still… nice.

Even if it had been just the once and only for himself.

The Man-Tiger was still just the Man-Tiger, after all.

Nothing had truly changed between them even if they did… like each other.

 _Like._

It was such a stupid, imprecise word; he wasn't even sure what had prompted him to say such a thing in the first place.

It wasn't even true… not really.

Most of the time he didn't _like_ him at all.

Most of the time the Man-Tiger was an irritant, a nuisance, an obstacle in his path, a stone in his shoe.

They were enemies and perhaps they were also uneasy allies, but they weren't… partners.

Weren't friends.

Weren't anything else either.

 _Like._

Such a simple word for something that was anything but.

Whatever they were to each other… it was nothing simple.

Nothing so soft or easily defined.

Their relationship, whatever it was, seemed fragile as a soap bubble floating through the air. They'd been brought together by mutual interest and complimentary powers and the intersecting goals of their organizations.

Beyond that… there was nothing to hold them together.

Nothing that would last.

 _Like…._

Whatever that word truly meant to either of them, there was no permanence in it and without permanence there was no point in bothering with remembering and using something as particular and singular as a name.

So, Man-Tiger he was and Man-Tiger he would remain.

It was better that way.

The walk to the station was short and quiet, the streets emptied by the lateness of the hour or the turn of the weather.

When he reached the station the car he stepped into was deserted save an old man with a paper bag clutched in one hand, humming tunelessly as he swayed in his seat to the rhythm of the train's shift.

His fingers tingled, the cold of the night having worked its way into his bones during his walk and he tapped them against his knees as he sat down in a seat far removed from the car's only other occupant, his gaze settling absently on his darkened reflection in the window as the train slid forward towards its next destination.

He frowned at the image, leaning forward with narrowed eyes as it glared back at him uneasily.

There was simply something about it that set his teeth on edge. An undeniable certainty that something wasn't quite right that sent a queasy, uneasy feeling rioting through his stomach even though he couldn't quite pinpoint what it might be.

There were still flecks of snow lingering in his hair, sprinkled liberally across the shoulders of his coat though they'd be gone soon enough, eaten away beneath the oppressive warmth of the car.

His face just as pale and sickly as it ever was.

The shadows beneath his eyes seemed no deeper than normal.

Nothing remarkable.

Nothing that explained why his heart was racing, his chest tightening around a rising panic except….

He reached tentative fingers up to touch against his bare throat, the part of his shirt and the absence of the familiar silk of his cravat.

Gone.

Missed in the rush of redressing and left behind in the Man-Tiger's apartment no doubt.

It was such a small, inconsequential thing, but it left him feeling like a stranger in his own skin, fingers trembling and dark eyes staring back at him wide-eyed with a horror he couldn't quite feel.

How long had it been since he'd gone out with his throat left bare?

How long since he'd been so… _careless?_

The train rumbled, swaying as breaks were applied and a soft mechanical voice announced its arrival at another station, cool air slipping in through open doors to wind its way through the car to send a shiver working up his spine.

He would have to stop by his apartment to grab a replacement before going to headquarters.

Boss Pervert would notice the oversight, would comment on it.

That girl would laugh.

It would be annoying at best.

It was an inconvenience best avoided.

Was this just another consequence of every excuse, of every moment of weakness that he'd allowed himself in the days, weeks, months since he'd accepted that first invitation.

He was so distracted by his thoughts that he didn't even bother to glance up when he heard the shuffle of someone hurrying into the car, diving in through the closing doors with a yelp.

Barely even blinked at the sound of wet leather smacking against the floor and the completely overdramatic sigh of relief as the train pulled out of the station and a flurry of wet idiot flung itself into the seat beside him, close enough that their arms brushed, close enough that he could feel the cold radiating from him and his breath caught in his throat at the sight of all that familiar pale reflected in the window beside his own dark-clad form.

"You forgot this," he panted, waving the damp cloth weakly as if it were a flag of surrender.

He glanced at the station map, confirming for himself that the train was already two stops away from the station closest to the Man-Tiger's apartment.

 _Stupid._

He must have run the whole way.

He was damp with sweat, covered in melting snow, his shirt clinging almost obscenely to his chest and shoulders.

 _Foolish._

"You okay?" The Man-Tiger asked, squinting at him. "You look kind of-"

"It's snowing," he snapped, cutting off whatever he might have said and turning his glare from the Man-Tiger's reflection to the real thing and his complete lack of reasonable attire.

"Well, I didn't realize that when I left and by then I was already out the door," he fidgeted, shifting around in his seat, his expression already tensing towards a defensive frown. "I wanted to catch you so I was in kind of a hurry."

"Do you even own a coat?" He replied evenly, narrowing his eyes as he snatched the damp cravat from the Man-Tiger's fingers and turned his attention to doing up the last of the buttons on his shirt before tying the limp cloth back where it belonged with abrupt, jerky movements.

"Shut up, I own a coat. I just… it's _bulky_ and hard to run in, but… it's _fine_ , the cold doesn't really bother me and anyway I thought I could catch you before you got to the station. It's not my fault you walk freakishly fast," he grouched, folding his arms across his chest and sinking down further in his seat.

"I'm not giving you mine."

"I don't _want_ yours. Do you think I came all this way to trade you your stupid dressy scarf thing for your coat? I'm _fine_ , I'll just take the train back and it's not that far a walk and… hey… are you _worrying_ about me?"

"Don't be an idiot. It has nothing to do with you," he snapped, excuses spiraling from his mouth faster than he could consider them. "Dazai-san wouldn't appreciate it if I let you die of hypothermia for something so trivial."

"Right," the Man-Tiger grumbled, slumping down in his seat so far that it seemed as if at any moment he might slip out of the seat and spill across the floor like a puddle of discontent gelatin. " _Dazai-san_."

Was the Man-Tiger pouting? Mocking him? Mocking himself?

Sometimes it was difficult to tell.

" _What?_ " he asked, waspishly.

" _What_ what?"

The silence stretched out long and uncomfortable, full of things unsaid and ill-defined.

Those sentiments so easily exchanged in the quiet confines of the Man-Tiger's shabby apartment seemed to have dissolved into vapor beneath the pressure of reality.

 _Like._

It seemed a silly thing to have said now, insubstantial and vague. As if they'd been playing another card game, another meaningless diversion to pass the time, to be forgotten the moment they passed back into the world beyond that space.

"You just… you always fall back on that. Sometimes I think he's the only reason you come around at all," the Man-Tiger mumbled, leaning into his shoulder.

That might have been true once, he thinks but does not say.

The train slipped past station after station as they sat there together, but the Man-Tiger made no move to leave or speak and neither did he, unable to quite bring himself to dislodge the comforting weight against his side or break the silence between them with another meaningless argument or inconvenient truth.

"Are you okay? Are you in trouble?" The Man-Tiger asked finally, speaking mostly into his own chest, the words barely more than a whisper.

"I don't know," he surprised himself by answering, honestly and just as softly.

He'd been trying not to think about it, it was pointless to theorize about something with so little information, after all.

Gin's appearance, the sudden summons… they could mean anything, anything or nothing.

Dwelling on what might be wouldn't change the outcome.

"Is it my fault?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Man-Tiger, you're not so important," he scoffed, muffling a cough against the back of his hand.

"Atsushi," he corrected absently.

"Man-Tiger," he reaffirmed, closing his eyes and letting his head drop back against the window.

It was easy to relax there with the Man-Tiger's presence familiar and warm beside him, easy to lose himself in the soft repetition and shift of the train around them.

"You're not falling asleep, are you?" A voice murmured, close to his ear, warm breath stirring his hair.

He blinked his eyes open slowly, bleary and uncertain of how much time had passed, to the feel of a tentative touch smoothing across the back of his hand. He glanced down at the fingers resting as if poised to flee at any moment, marveling drowsily at how dark and strange they seemed against his own.

It occurred to him that he should shake the touch away, should have lashed out the moment it had been initiated, but he found himself caught between one breath and the next, indecisive.

Was this what it was to like someone?

The sudden unexpected arrival of this unnerving uncertainty that slowed his ability to make decisions, caught him into consideration of consequences he'd never bothered to even acknowledge before.

What was he supposed to do?

What was expected?

What did he even _want_?

He had no answers, only question upon question piling up one atop the other until they filled all the available space within him and spilled out to dig his fingers painfully against his legs until the Man-Tiger, finally sensing the rising tension, withdrew, pulling his hand back into his own lap.

It should have made it better, should have eased his uncertainty, his frustration, but it didn't.

Maybe nothing would.

Perhaps there were some bridges that were, once crossed, impossible to retread.

That something about those words they'd spoken to each other had so fundamentally changed things between them that, now that they'd been given voice, given a name, made it so that nothing would ever be quite the same.

Made it so every gesture, every touch would feel like a code he couldn't read and didn't understand. Saying it had been so simple, but living with it, moving into the unknown that existed beyond it seemed like an impossible feat, a towering wall he couldn't scale.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have… I-I don't know what I'm doing," the Man-Tiger confessed, putting awkward voice to the similar sentiment clogging his own chest. His face was still turned in close, the words muttered against his ear, breath hot and damp against his cheek. "I d-don't know how to…"

He fell back, away, tipping back into his chair to gesture grandly, helplessly, at the space between them, at each of them in turn, at the train car itself, the stations they had passed, the old man still swaying down the row, the world in general, maybe, it was difficult to tell as he waved his hands aimlessly through the air like an exorcist attempting to banish an evil spirit. Words spilled past his lips like water from a broken valve, so quickly it was difficult to catch each individual syllable through the relentless flow of anxiety.

"I don't know how to _like_ anyone or what you're supposed to do when you do. I was always alone before they turned me out, before I came to Yokohama, to the Agency. I don't know how to _do_ this. Any of this. And I… I made it _weird_ , didn't I? Telling you I like you like I did? Saying it back when I didn't… I mean it's not like you qualified it or anything. Y-You might not have even _meant_ it like that. When I was trying to catch up to you I kept thinking that maybe all you meant was that you don't _hate_ me anymore or maybe that you just like me like you like _Higuchi-san_ or maybe, I don't know, _tea_ or fighting or something. Just as a preference, nothing special. I don't know if you meant that you _like_ like me."

" _Like_ like you? What are you even talking about? You sound like an idiot."

"And whose fault is _that_?" The Man-Tiger grouched, "You're the one who confessed to me out of freaking nowhere and then just took off!"

" _Confessed?_ All I said was that that I-" he broke off, frowning.

The train car was far too warm or maybe he was running a fever, that at least would explain the heat in his face and the recklessness nature of his actions of late.

It had been so simple to say the word in that moment, in the quiet of the apartment with inches between them, but that moment was gone and there was nothing easy about repeating the sentiment with the Man-Tiger staring at him with that stupid eager expression.

" _See!_ " The Man-Tiger crowed, annoyingly triumphant and far too loud. "It's not easy for you either!"

"It would be if you would just _stop_ _talking_ about it," he snapped, even though it probably wasn't true.

There was nothing _easy_ about _anything_ that had ever happened between them.

"And then what? Do we just pretend that we weren't, I mean… right before you left… it kind of felt like maybe you were going to… that we were going to, um...?" He trailed off, his face red, fingers fidgeting with the damp hem of the shirt he hadn't bothered to tuck back in.

"Nothing happened," he said, irritation guiding him to his feet to put some space between them, to stop the Man-Tiger from brushing against him every time he flailed. "Stop deciding things all on your own."

"Well, I wouldn't _have_ to if you would just tell me what you were thinking, because it felt like something _could_ have happened, like maybe we were going to, um, you know, k-kiss- "

"Stop acting like you know everything."

"I know I don't!" The Man-Tiger exclaimed, cutting through his thoughts and thrashing the remains of his patience. "I don't _know_ anything, because you aren't _saying_ anything. That's why I'm ask- "

" _Rashomon_."

Light swirled to life around him, the flurry of motion lifting his hair as his power lashed out to seal securely across the Man-Tiger's mouth and wound round his head to keep it secure. The sudden silence seemed deafening even though it wasn't anywhere near to complete. There was still the rattle of the train around them, his own heavy, labored breaths, the muffled indignant protests of the Man-Tiger as he tore at the cloth wrapped around his head, and the quiet, uninterrupted humming of the man down the aisle who either hadn't noticed or was completely unperturbed by the sudden power usage in his vicinity.

Still… it was better than it had been.

He just… needed a _moment_. Just one moment free of the Man-Tiger's incessant _yammering_.

Just one moment to think about what he'd said.

About what he'd been trying to say.

Because it made _sense_.

If he thought about all those moments that had made him feel so out of his element, they suddenly all made sense.

It was so... _obvious_.

 _Kissing._

He'd been dwelling on what they'd said, on that one poorly defined word, but it was those moments, the moments after that were the Man-Tiger's greatest concern.

Physical attraction.

That was all it was.

Hardly worth getting worked up about.

Funny that it hadn't even occurred to him to consider something so blatantly obvious before the Man-Tiger's dogged insistence on talking about what hadn't happened.

After all, he'd known things were changing between them long before he'd accidentally put such a woefully inappropriate name to the feeling.

What else could it be but a sex thing?

He wasn't _ignorant,_ after all.

He knew about sex.

The boys had talked and sometimes he'd had nothing better to do than listen and Dazai-san had never been particularly subtle or private in the pursuit of his own amorous inclinations.

So, he'd heard and seen enough of that sort of thing in passing over the years to know that there was something of it in the roil of nervous energy in the pit of his stomach when they touched.

And he hadn't really needed to listen to him blather on about it to know that whatever the Man-Tiger felt was probably something similar.

Just as he didn't have to see the way his cheeks reddened or hear him stumble through an explanation of his upbringing to know that he knew more about this sort of thing than the Man-Tiger did.

After all, _he_ hadn't been raised in _solitary confinement_ in an _orphanage_ run by a _Catholics_.

He hadn't the least idea what he'd been taught about intimacy, but he doubted it had been anything _useful_.

Of course, what knowledge he had didn't make him any more comfortable talking about it or even _thinking_ about it, so it was possible that this was one area in which ignorance was an advantage worth having.

Or maybe it was just that he'd always liked things that were simple, straight-forward.

Things that were easily defined.

Black and white.

Life and death.

Us and them.

Simple concepts that didn't require overlong, pointless conversation to define them.

His life had been so much easier when he had simply been allowed to go about his business without question.

When he had no longer been Dazai-san's pupil, before he'd ever even heard of the Man-Tiger, during those long months when he'd been nothing more or less than the mafia's dog, everything had been… _easier_.

He'd been able to tear their enemies apart, destroy those who stood in their path without anyone taking him aside to instruct him on hows and whys.

He'd just been left to fulfill his orders as he saw fit.

No one had asked him what he _thought_ or how he _felt_.

Nobody had _questioned_ him.

Nobody had expected _better_ of him.

And _nobody_ had ever asked whether he was _okay_.

Not even _Gin_.

Certainly not Dazai-san.

It was pointless and unnecessary.

It made things difficult, _he_ made things difficult.

There was nothing to _like_ about any of it.

He wasn't sure why he did.

Physical attraction was hardly any kind of reasonable excuse for all that he'd done, all the mistakes he'd made, but it would have to do.

What else was there but that?

He wasn't sure why the thought left him feeling strangely dissatisfied.

He was so lost in the rambling tumble of his thoughts that when the world suddenly whirled around him, turning into a confusing flurry of motion that landed him flat on his back with the Man-Tiger's weight knocking the breath from his lungs, it took long moments before he was able to figure out what had happened. Rashomon was a tangle of snarling black and red fury around them that he couldn't quite sort out and clammy fingers squeezed tight around his own, pinning one hand to the filthy, well-trodden ground even as he flung his other arm up to press against the Man-Tiger's throat as he felt warm, damp breath ghost across his cheek.

He might have cursed as he felt them begin to slide as the train slowed, signaling their arrival at yet another station, but he wasn't sure with the Man-Tiger snarling in his ear and his head pounding from the impact with floor.

He glared up at the boy above him, wrapping tendrils of his power around his legs, arms and waist, tightening his grip even as he realized it wouldn't be quite enough to break free of the Man-Tiger's hold unless he actually took him apart.

He thought briefly about chopping his limbs off and tossing what remained out the door before he could regenerate, but dismissed the idea when he felt the Man-Tiger's teeth graze his throat, far sharper than a man's teeth would have been. The Man-Tiger's control had gotten far better over the past few months, more precise, able to take on aspects of the tiger without the usual change in appearance. Sharper teeth, nails, greater speed and strength, weight.

The Man-Tiger had confessed once, after a fight when they'd been slumped together damp with sweat and too tired yet to move, that sometimes, during the worst, most heated battles, he felt perilously close to the edge of reason, as if he were a breath away from being more tiger than man. He'd fought him often enough to know that his armor could keep his sharpened teeth from ripping his throat out, but the bruises left behind were nothing to scoff at.

The doors slid open as the automated voice announced their arrival at the station and the old man down the way lumbered up from his feet to weave past them on heavy stumbling feet as he made his way to the door. He shook his head as he stepped out of the car with a mumble that sounded like 'crazy kids', footsteps loud against the pavement as the doors slid closed behind him.

"Akutagawa," the Man-Tiger murmured, voice rough, teeth and lips still brushing his throat, drawing his attention back from the closing doors. He felt the grip on his hand loosen, the prick of sharp teeth vanish, as blue light swirled around them and the weight on his chest became markedly less. "You could have just _asked_ me to be quiet, you know."

"Why should I bother when you never actually stop _talking_?" He replied through his teeth as Rashomon crackled once more around them like fettered lightning before vanishing back into the dark of his coat. "Off."

He shoved at the Man-Tiger's shoulder, a little surprised when he stood up immediately, grabbing his hand and pulling him to his feet before he could bother to form any kind of protest.

"Maybe I _would_ if you just _answered_ me instead of… whatever it is you're doing. I mean, do you really want to just pretend nothing happened that badly?"

"As if you're capable of that," he sighed, coughing against the back of his hand.

Avoidance was proving to be nearly as exhausting as simply talking about might have been.

"Well, it's your fault just saying it out of nowhere in the first place. I don't know what we're supposed to do about it or if we're supposed to do anything or if you even _want_ to do anything or if _I_ even want to do anything."

He didn't have an answer for any of that.

The Man-Tiger slumped back into his seat, pressing his hands over his face presumably to hide the redness of his cheeks though doing so was rather pointless since he'd already seen it.

"I just... I _like_ you," he moaned, the syllables made muffled and muddy by the press of his hands. "You've always been completely different than anyone else. I just… you made me so _mad_ and I _hated_ the things you did and I thought I'd never be able to forgive you for any of it. And I just… I didn't understand you at _all_ and then I _did_ and everything changed. _We_ changed and everything just _kept_ changing and even when we were fighting it wasn't like before… it was _different_. Sometimes it was almost _fun_. The way I feel about you… I don't know if it's… I don't know what it is or what it means. I mean, I said I like you and I do, but… it's _different_ , _you're_ different. I don't know, I just... I want you to keep coming around at weird hours of the night to sleep over or play card games or whatever. Even if you are a terrible loser."

"Who's a terrible loser?" He grumbled, settling exhausted into the seat across from him as the train slowed for yet another station.

"Shut up, you're way worse."

"You're ridiculous."

And he was.

Maybe they both were.

But, for whatever reason, that didn't always seem like such a terrible thing to be.

Maybe idiocy was contagious.

"It is, isn't it?" The Man-Tiger sighed, yanking his legs up in front of him, perching his heels against the edge of the seat and dropping his head back against the window with a quiet thump. "I almost wish we could just, I don't know, pretend we never even saw each other tonight."

"That would be simpler," he muttered, clearing his throat. It felt as if he had swallowed something bitter, something that lingered harsh against the back of his tongue.

"Is that what you want?" His voice was quiet, weak, more mouse than cat.

He shrugged. He didn't have any answers. The entire night felt like one long, unrelentingly strange dream he couldn't wake up from.

"Okay."

He whipped around to stare at him and the Man-Tiger flinched back from the look, expression scrunching up in something like irritation, "What? You don't think I could do it?"

Finally, a question he knew the answer to, "No."

"Well, neither could you," he sighed, folding his arms tightly across his chest.

He knew the answer to that as well, found himself shrugging through it rather than voicing it aloud.

"So, what should we do? I mean, you don't want to talk about it and I can't _not_ talk about it and we can't pretend we didn't say what we said."

"I don't know," he answered honestly.

They sat in silence for long moments as the train rattled around them.

He hadn't truly made a decision by the time the train slid into his station, but when he stood to exit he still caught a hand against the Man-Tiger's shoulder, tugging him to his feet.

If the Man-Tiger had asked what they were doing, where they were going, he probably would have left him behind, but for once he'd held his tongue and simply trailed behind him as they made their way through the station and up and out into the snow-covered night beyond.

He wasn't surprised when the Man-Tiger immediately huddled in on himself, shivering beneath the assault of the bitter winter wind.

It was a simple enough matter to step a little closer and wrap his power around them both, to coax it to consume the cold air closest to them to create a buffer against the chill in the air.

It didn't mean anything.

It was just less irritating than listening to his teeth chatter.

Yet the Man-Tiger was giving him that same wide-eyed look again. That look that seemed to say that his power, that _he,_ was something… _special_.

It made him feel too aware of how little space there was between them, of the lateness of the hour and far, far too conscious of the destination he had in mind.

Was taking him there another mistake?

Another error in judgement?

He had made the effort to return his property and even though he hadn't asked him to do so… he was still grateful for it.

Even if he was considerably less grateful for the awkward conversation that had followed.

Still.

He didn't want to owe him anything.

This way they would be even.

That was all it was.

Just the elimination of the unwanted weight of obligation.

By doing this, making this concession, there would finally be no more debts between them.

He slid a tendril of cloth out to bind the Man-Tiger's eyes and was treated to an indignant squawk as he ground to a halt, fingers flying to his face to pull at the cloth, "Akutagawa!"

"I'll take you to my place, but I won't show you the way," he replied briskly, continuing on down the street without bothering to wait for an answer, letting the power that still bound them together stretch out between them like taffy, long and loose and close to breaking. "Feel free to just go home if you'd rather."

After a moment that felt far longer than it probably was, he heard the Man-Tiger's boots crunching through the snow behind him, "You could have just asked instead of blindfolding me out of nowhere."

"Don't pout."

"Don't run me into anything," he grumbled, stepping faster until he was walking close enough that he could catch his hand, warm fingers squeezing tight around his own.

And if he didn't shake free of his hold during the long, incessantly winding route he took back to his apartment building, it was only because leading him that way was more efficient.

Just that.

Nothing more.

 **-ooo-**

 **NOTES:**  
 **  
Sex Ed:** In my mind, the chances of either of them actually knowing much of anything about sex are virtually nil. Akutagawa essentially raised himself and Atsushi was the orphanage shut-in. It's doubtful that anyone actually bothered to tell either of them anything about anything. That said, one of my fondest headcanons is the idea of a drunken Chuuya attempting to give Akutagawa 'the talk' because he was convinced that Dazai would either neglect to do so altogether or that he might actually give it and give nothing but the sort of terrible advice he would expect someone like Dazai to give.

 **Boys:** The boys that Akutagawa is referring to are the group of boys he lived with prior to being picked up by Dazai.


	5. The Naming of Cats - A Name & A Question

_"It's partly true, too, but it isn't all true. People always think something's all true."_  
\- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

-ooo-

Man-Tiger had kept up a grumbled litany of complaints as they stumbled along together through the snowy, deserted streets of Yokohama only finally falling silent when they'd stopped at the squat, well-kept, unassuming building in which he'd lived for the past few years.

The doorman barely glanced up as they came in, just kept flipping through his magazine as he scanned his card and the doors swooshed open to allow them entrance into the lobby.

He was well-paid to mind his own business where the building's few tenants were concerned and he took that part of his job very seriously.

Or at least that's what Dazai-san had told him when he'd first brought him to the building a few weeks after he'd joined the Port Mafia. He could have been lying, but he'd come in bloody often enough during the intervening years without incident to confirm that, at the very least, the man who sat behind the desk didn't care much one way or the other what the tenants did so long as they didn't expect him to help them carry groceries.

"Close your eyes. Don't look or I'll kill you," he murmured before releasing Rashomon's hold from his face and shoulders and jabbing a finger against the up button.

The elevator was old and it always seemed to take an obscenely long time to go anywhere.

"Is this your building?"

"Yes. Shut up."

He felt exposed standing there, agitated in a way he hadn't on the walk from the station.

Man-Tiger's fingers flexed against his own, his grip tightening as if he thought he might pull free and abandon him to his blindness now that they'd arrived.

Their hands had grown unpleasantly sweaty over the course of their overly long walk, but though the idea of shaking free of his clutching fingers had occurred to him more than once, he still hadn't done it.

"Why does everything smell so… citrusy?" Man-Tiger whispered the words, but they still seemed tremendously loud.

He sniffed tentatively at the air.

Nothing.

He turned a sharp glare on him, but he couldn't read anything from the Man-Tiger's pinched expression, his closed eyes.

Was he teasing him?

Had Dazai-san told him? It seemed the sort of thing he might do.

Or was his nose simply that much better than his own?

Did it matter?

"I wouldn't know," he replied brusquely, yanking against his hand and finally shaking free of his grasp so he could jab irritably at the elevator button with both hands as if the secret to making the elevator arrive sooner were in pushing the button harder and more frequently.

"Really? You haven't asked?" He said, rubbing his newly freed fingers against his trousers.

"No," he snapped, before smothering an inconvenient cough against the back of his free hand. "I haven't _asked_."

"Why are you acting like I just spit in your tea?"

"Shut up." He jabbed at the button again, toes tapping an impatient rhythm against the tiles.

Bringing him there with him had been a mistake.

A mistake it was too late to take back.

His own fault for not thinking it through.

He just kept making one poor decision after another where the Man-Tiger was concerned.

"You are," he said, his fingers snagging his arm, wrapping firmly and unerringly around him even though his eyes were still squeezed shut. "Are you mad because I know about your building smells like? If you didn't want me to smell things you should have covered my nose too."

"I could smother you now if you'd like," he snapped, grinding his teeth together.

"Well, I'd probably still be able to smell it even if you did. Do you live in a giant orange or something?"

"Orange?" He echoed, feeling like he'd somehow lost the thread of this conversation, if he'd ever had it at all.

There'd been an entire winter when he was seven or eight where there'd been almost nothing to eat besides a crate of oranges they'd stolen from a market stall and kept buried out back, hidden behind a pile of old wood.

He could still remember the way they'd tasted as they'd begun to turn, to rot.

They'd eaten them anyway.

It had been the only fresh fruit he could remember having eaten before the day Boss Pervert had finished his initial exam and stood staring down his nose at him as he handed Dazai-san a long list of what he'd eventually discovered were nutritional requirements.

"If you're going to take the time to train him, you'll also need to see he lives long enough to benefit from it."

He'd discovered, during that brief time afterwards when Dazai-san had made a game of forcing him to try new things from the list, that he still _hated_ oranges.

Hated the strange soft, mushy, stringy feel of them as he crushed each wedge between his teeth.

The way they left his hands and face sticky with juice no matter how careful he ate them.

That strange sour-sweet taste they left on his tongue.

He remembered the way Dazai-san had laughed as he'd forced himself to swallow the fruit down, gagging.

"You _really_ don't like them, do you?"

" _No._ "

"I suppose we can take that one off the list then."

He remembered the way Dazai-san had smiled weeks later when he'd told him he needed a place to live, a place for Gin.

The way he'd insisted he knew just the place.

Reasonably close to headquarters, rent-controlled, with good security that never asked questions.

The perfect place.

He hadn't known what that smile meant then.

Hadn't yet learned to read his moods.

Not that he ever really had.

"Akutagawa?"

He startled back into the moment, to find Man-Tiger standing in front of him, hands brushing over his sleeves, concern wrinkling the skin between his brows. "What's going on? I'm gonna open my eyes now."

"Don't," he replied, pressing a hand over them.

The elevator arrived with a soft chime and the doors sliding open with glacial slowness, a gateway to the furthering of terrible decisions.

He shook his head as if it might clear such thoughts away and shrugged free of Man-Tiger's hands, shoving him backwards without warning into the waiting car.

Man-Tiger let out a satisfying squawk, stumbling backwards, his arms pinwheeling in an attempt to find his balance as his eyes sprang open. His gaze darted about frantically before finally settling on him, narrowing as he stepped inside and calmly pressed the button that would take them to the top floor.

"You're the _worst_ ," he grouched, arms folding across his chest as he slumped back against the rear wall to pout.

"You didn't have to come," he replied, feeling better than he'd felt in hours, days.

Seeing Man-Tiger flail around always improved his mood.

The elevator doors slid closed and they were alone with the quiet, unobtrusively boring music that he was quite certain was the exact same song that had been playing on repeat every day since the day Dazai-san had brought him there and helped him sign his name to the lease.

"I wouldn't have if I'd known you were gonna freak you out like this," he sighed finally, as if he'd been waiting for the elevator to start moving before he spoke.

"I'm not freaking out."

"Yeah, you are. You're not even hiding it particularly well," he snorted.

He wasn't certain how true that was.

Wasn't certain if he cared.

"It really smells like oranges?" He asked finally, cautiously, staring intently at the neat rows of unlit buttons.

"Yeah, why would I lie about that? You really can't smell that?"

It was a fair question, if an uncomfortable one.

"No."

He could practically feel him fidgeting behind him, aching to ask the question, to know.

"Why can't you smell it?"

"It's no concern of yours, Man-Tiger."

" _Atsushi._ "

" _Man-Tiger._ "

"You're so _weird_ ," Man-Tiger huffed, dropping back against the rear wall. "It's just a name."

The _'I can't believe I like you'_ goes unsaid, but he can hear it just the same.

He jabbed the button for their floor again as if it might encourage the elevator to move faster before stepping back to stand beside him, just close enough that their shoulders brushed.

Not because he wanted to be near him.

It had simply been a long day and he was tired enough that leaning seemed preferable to standing.

The elevator ride was long and quiet and Man-Tiger eventually uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands in his pockets as if he were afraid of what he might do if he allowed them to simply hang free.

It was a sentiment he understood as he leaned his head back against the wall, all too conscious of his own hands, pale and chapped by the cold, one still warm and a little damp from the Man-Tiger's grip.

Their apartment was at the end of a short, empty hall.

It wasn't the only apartment on the fifth level of the building, but it was the only one that was occupied. In the beginning, they'd had neighbors, but as time passed they'd slowly bought out the additional spaces to insure privacy and security when they came back bloody or worn.

Eventually the entire floor had belonged solely to them.

It was expensive, wasteful even, for as much as they used of it, but the owner of the building had given them a decent enough deal that they could afford it easily if they split the cost.

He pressed his thumb against the keypad briefly before wiping the surface clean and pushing the door open, ushering Man-Tiger into the dimly lit interior.

"Take off your shoes," he muttered, sitting down heavily on the short bench in the entryway to begin unlacing his own.

"This is where you live?" The Man-Tiger replied, staring around like a gap-mouthed tourist and blithely ignoring the request.

There was little point in answering such a stupid question when the truth was so blatantly obvious.

"It's nice. _Really_ nice."

"It's just a place," he breathed, already regretting bringing him there.

Just having him standing in his entryway made him feel foolish and exposed and vulnerable.

Made him want to burn the entire building down around them just to avoid making small talk about it.

Why had he done this again?

Why had this seemed like a good idea?

He wished he had a time machine so he could go back and bludgen himself to death just to avoid this situation.

There was nothing to like about this.

Any of it.

He huffed out a sigh and turned away so Man-Tiger wouldn't see the way his hands trembled as he removed his boots and set them neatly against the wall.

It was just a place.

 _Just_ a _place_.

A place that was theirs.

A place that- excepting the two of them and Dazai-san- no one else had ever stepped foot in.

But, in the end, it was still just a place.

And like any place it could be easily abandoned and easily forgotten and it didn't matter what Man-Tiger thought of it.

There was no reason to be bothered by his presence there.

He reached for the slippers on the rack and frowned.

There were only two pairs.

They'd never bothered with purchasing new guest slippers after Gin had thrown away the last pair.

Gin's slippers would be too small to fit Man-Tiger's feet even if he'd been willing to pass them off as guest slippers.

Which left his own.

Gin had been born on a Thursday.

He wasn't quite certain which one or why he remembered that it was a Thursday, only that he had.

"I asked Auntie, but she said she didn't know and then told me it didn't matter and it was stupid of me to ask anyway," Gin had scrubbing their sleeve against a smudge of dirt high on their cheek. "So I thought I'd ask you."

"A Thursday," he'd replied the knowledge surfacing easily as he tore the slice of bread they'd brought with them into strips, counting carefully as he folded the others' shares into the handkerchief they'd brought it in. "February, probably. It was cold."

"When's yours?"

"Don't know," he'd replied, tearing what was left into tiny bite size chunks and eating it slowly so it would last longer.

"Really?"

He shrugged.

He agreed with Old Crank, it was a stupid thing to care about, birthdays didn't matter.

How old you were didn't matter.

All that mattered was whether you were strong enough to survive.

The world was just as cruel at nine as it would be at fifty.

"Can I pick a day for you then? And you can pick one for me?"

He shrugged again.

He hadn't seen the point, but he hadn't seen the harm in it either.

"Fourth," he offered, "February"

"Why February fourth?"

"Why not?"

"Okay, you can be March first."

"Why?"

Gin smiled, offering him a packet of plastic-wrapped biscuits, "Because then today can be your birthday."

The gifts they gave each other had always been small, practical and, during those early years, consumable.

Most years, Gin had would talk one of Old Crank's clients into buying them a loaf of fresh bread and they'd share it around with the others.

For Gin, he'd usually stolen something from the market for them, chocolate or some other sweet treat, since Old Crank had kept Gin reasonably well fed.

"You could get me something I could share, you know," they'd said one year, as they'd shoved pieces of chocolate in their mouth. "I wouldn't mind."

"Why would I? It's your birthday, not mine."

Once they'd both started working for the Port Mafia, the gifts had gotten more expensive, but they'd remained relatively simple and practical.

Last year he'd purchased Gin a new mask and jacket and they'd given him a scarf and new house slippers to replace the tatty old ones he'd long ago outgrown.

They were soft and black, embroidered with shiny red accents meant to mimic the shape and form Rashomon so frequently took.

The stitching was a little crooked.

Was it impolite to wear slippers when your guest could not?

Did he even care if it was?

It wasn't as if the Man-Tiger had guest slippers… or any slippers at all, really.

He probably wouldn't even notice.

Man-Tiger flopped down on the bench behind him, completely oblivious to his mental train wreak of memory and etiquette, and began unlacing his boots, wet laces and the tread leaving little puddles of water in their wake. "It's much bigger than mine."

"Of course it is," he replied even as he realized the Man-Tiger would have no way of knowing about his living situation.

Did he want him to know?

Did it matter if he did?

Bringing him there had been a _mistake_.

He stood up slowly, still staring down intently at the floor of his entryway.

Perhaps if he stared at it long enough he might be able to wind time back to that morning and lose the entirety of this long day of terrible decisions along the way.

Man-Tiger prattled on, filling the familiar silence of his apartment with a life it had never had… not even when Dazai-san used to show up at random intervals to burn meals in their kitchen, rearrange his tea leaves and- one particularly annoying occasion- to peel the labels from all the canned goods in their cabinets.

If it weren't for the little familiarities- the pressure cracks in the tile, the mysterious peppermint candy that had appeared in the corner near the door a few weeks ago that he refused to pick up on principle- it would have been easy to forget that they were in his apartment at all.

Should he take his coat off?

He still needed to go to headquarters so there wasn't really any point in getting comfortable.

He hadn't really meant to come to their apartment at all beforehand.

But the idea of leaving him there alone was daunting.

He'd never invited anyone there before.

Not even Dazai-san.

He'd always just shown up on his own.

It felt a little sick.

Take it off?

Leave it on?

Wear the slippers?

Don't?

Every choice seemed overwhelming and strangely vital with someone besides Gin there to bear witness.

"I don't know, I guess I just always pictured you living in a cave or something."

"Where would I find a cave in Yokohama?" He asked absently, glancing back at him finally.

"I don't know, I guess I never gave it much thought," Man-Tiger muttered, face obviously red even in the dim light of the entry. He turned away to settle his boots neatly beside the door, crouching beside them far longer than necessary, poking at them and frowning as if he couldn't quite get them to line up in a satisfactory manner.

An awkward silence descended between them and he wasn't certain what to say to break it.

To make any of this less strange and uncomfortable.

He kind of wanted to grab Man-Tiger and his stupid shoes and just shove them right back out the door.

Why had this seemed like a good idea?

He should have thought it through.

He didn't have time for any of this.

Didn't even _want_ to have time for it.

Was this what it was to like someone?

An endless parade of awkward silences and even more awkward situations?

Eventually Man-Tiger stopped fiddling about with his boots and climbed back to his feet, but if anything that just made things _worse_.

He looked so small and uncertain standing close to the door in stockinged feet, toes wiggling against the tile as he shifted back and forth, swaying almost, his eyes darting around the darkened room beyond him, beyond the entryway, fingers fiddling with his suspenders.

He looked like he didn't belong.

Like he regretted following him out of the station.

Like he didn't….

"Thank you for inviting me," he blurted out the words all in a rush, but the look on his face made it seem as if he'd really rather he hadn't.

So, they had that in common at least.

"Thank you for coming," he replied, slowly.

What was done was done.

There was no point in him leaving now.

"Here," he murmured, nudging his slippers towards him with one foot before stepping away into the living room before he could think better of it. "Use those. Your socks are flithy."

"They are not. I washed them yesterday," Man-Tiger insisted, but he could hear him shuffling into the slippers as he crossed the room to turn on the lamps that would illuminate the darkened space.

He was fortunate that Gin was still working and would likely not be back for several days.

When they were on active assignment it had always simply been easier to sleep at headquarters. Every member of the mafia had a room there though it was an open secret that most of the higher ranking members resided off-site. He and Gin owned three different safe houses scattered throughout Yokohama, though they'd rarely had occasion to use them.

"It's just good business," Dazai-san had once told him, when he'd first raised the subject of living outside headquarters. "After all, if we all lived in each other's pockets day in and day out Chuuya would have leveled the place by now and that's just not the sort of death I'm interested in."

He should turn up the heat.

It was too cold.

"You okay?" Man-Tiger asked, hand brushing his own and snapping him back into the moment.

"You ask stupid questions," he replied, pulling the cord to turn on a hanging lamp. None of the lamps were terribly bright, but together they were more than enough to illuminate the sparsely decorated living room.

When he turned back to face him, Man-Tiger had his hands knotted behind his back and was being very careful not to touch anything as if he weren't certain he was allowed.

It made him feel both better and worse about having brought him there.

"Tea," he murmured, offering it as an excuse as he slipped past him into the small kitchen to put the kettle on.

"You have a TV."

When he glanced back he found him hovering close to the tiny box nestled on the bookcase.

"You can turn it on, if you want."

"Really? Do I just pull the knob?"

"Yes. There's a control thing on the table." He didn't bother to tell him he'd never used it, that it was Gin's, that he only knew it had a remote because they kept leaving it tucked in between the couch cushions and he kept accidentally sitting on it.

"….three killed in an explosion in downtown Yokohama. Currently there are no…."

 _Click._

".…as soon as they hatch, baby dragons will run away and climb trees to avoid being eaten by the mother or other…."

 _Click._

"….without a map we'll never find our way…"

 _Click._

He flicked the switch to turn on the kitchen lights, wincing as they blared to life, far too bright after the relative dim of the still warming lamplight.

A bevy of sound effects and quick chatter sprang to life and then quieted to a dull murmur as the Man-Tiger finally found the volume control.

He filled the kettle and set it on the stove to boil.

He didn't really have time for tea.

For any of this.

He _knew_ that.

"It's nice."

He dug around in the cabinet in search of biscuits. There were only two boxes left and he frowned as he opened the fig-flavored one.

"The TV?" He answered belatedly, distracted by thoughts of their half-empty cabinet and the fact that they would need to go shopping soon.

It always bothered him a little when the cabinets weren't full.

"No, um, well, that too, I guess. But I meant, y-your home. It's nice."

"You only say that because you live in a shoebox," he replied, setting the biscuits on the counter and turning to find the Man-Tiger gawking at the big windows that dominated the far wall.

And shivering.

Like an _idiot_.

"Here," he sighed, striding back into the room and snatching a blanket off the nearest chair and holding it out for him to take.

Man-Tiger turned and stared at him as if he'd grown a second head or offered him a dead raccoon.

 _Stupid._

Why did he care if the idiot was cold?

What was there to _like_ about this?

About _him_?

Why had he invited him there in the first place?

What had he been hoping for?

"I'll get it wet."

Of course he would.

A towel.

He'd probably expected him to offer him a towel.

Except they only owned two.

They'd never needed more than that.

"You don't mind?" Man-Tiger asked, summoning him from the downward spiral of his thoughts.

"Would I offer if I did?"

"Probably not."

Man-Tiger gave him a grateful, watery smile that made his stomach drop into his feet.

"It's just a blanket," he snapped, shoving the heavy knitted thing at him and retreating back to the relative safety of the kitchen where he could fiddle about with the cabinets and pretend he wasn't avoiding him.

That he hadn't brought him there because he had some half-formed ridiculous idea that this would make things even between them.

That having him there might make understanding all this easier somehow.

That seeing him in that space, his space, might help him figure out how he fit there.

It didn't.

It had been a stupid idea.

He should have just left him on the train.

He opened the cabinet to stare hard at the almost empty shelves.

Three mugs.

The odd one out had gone so long without use that it was covered in a thick layer of dust he would have to rinse off in the sink, but at least there _was_ a third one.

Man-Tiger had a dozen mismatched mugs in the tiny cabinets of his poor excuse for a kitchen.

Did he have guests often?

Had he bought them himself?

Had they been there when he arrived?

It had never occurred to him to ask.

He wasn't sure why he was wondering about such trivial matters now.

"You really like blankets, huh?"

He stilled, hands falling to rest against the counter, setting down the wet mug in his hands down hard enough against the counter that he wouldn't have been surprised if it broke.

It didn't.

"It gets cold here," he grumbled, as if that were any kind of excuse for the excessive number of blankets and afghans and scarves and quilts draped over every available surface in the living room and layered twice as thick in his bedroom and piled high in the spare closets and under the beds.

The television continued it's dull, incomprehensible babble in the background, but somehow the silence between them still seemed suffocating.

He glared at the kettle, willing it to boil so he had something to do, some reason to remain in the kitchen.

"That's really pretty," Man-Tiger commented, startling him again.

It wasn't as if he'd forgotten he was there, but every time he spoke, every time he broke the familiar silence of the apartment, it was still jarring.

"What is?" He asked, not really caring, but it was better than letting the silence fill in the space between them again.

"Your painting," Man-Tiger clarified, sniffling loudly. "I really like it."

"It came with the apartment."

It hadn't.

"Oh, well, I like it anyway. I can see why you kept it."

His fingers curled against the edge of the counter.

Any minute the kettle would whistle and rescue him from this conversation.

"It's… it's kind of peaceful, isn't it?"

It wasn't anything special.

Wasn't painted by anyone famous or anything, just some random old thing he'd purchased at a street market.

He wasn't sure why the Man-Tiger was going on about it.

It wasn't even a landscape, really, more like the impression of a landscape than anything particularly recognizable. Just vague black forms and soft yellow dawn sprawled across cheap canvas.

He wasn't even sure why he'd wanted it in the first place.

They'd been out shopping together and the day had been warm. It had been a month, maybe two, after Gin had come to live with him, everything they owned shoved into two boxes that had been held together mostly by tape, dirt and optimism.

The apartment had been mostly empty then, just a small table with mismatched chairs and the futon Gin slept on and the futon he was supposed to sleep on, but never could.

Dazai-san had chastised him for the lack every time he'd come around. Always made too much noise about how that was no way for such a beautiful, young girl to live.

The last time he'd been there Gin had stared at him in silence as if he were something that had crawled up out of the drain to wriggle across their floors and complain about their hospitality.

"I suppose it's a good thing you don't live here then," they'd offered finally, hands in fists at their sides.

Dazai-san had laughed and laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and never said another word about it, like he'd just been waiting for them to fight back.

"Your boss is a jerk," they'd commented when he'd finally left.

He hadn't argued the point.

But when they'd gone out shopping later that week, he'd bought the painting.

It hadn't cost very much, less then half what they'd spent on food that week, but it had still made him feel vaguely sick as he shoved bills and coins into the hand of the old man who'd been tending the register. Gin had kept casting concerned glances at him as they walked back home, he with the paper-wrapped painting beneath his arm and they carrying their groceries.

It was the first thing he'd ever bought for himself.

The first thing that had been purchased for desire rather than necessity and it had been difficult to breathe around the rising panic. His wallet hadn't been empty, not even close, and they'd had plenty of food and the rent had already been paid in advance and yet he'd still barely managed to make it back to their apartment with the painting because his hands wouldn't stop trembling.

He'd set his burden against the wall and left it there as he locked himself in the bathroom and cracked the shower on. They'd left the heater on that morning and he was grateful for the error as he'd undressed and sat on the floor with his back to the door until he'd finally stopped shaking and the air had been thick and heavy with steam.

He'd gotten back to his feet and showered and somehow managed to convinced himself that things were different.

That he was different.

Eventually the water had grown cold and he'd dressed quickly in the same clothes and come out, hair still dripping across his shoulders and unwrapped the painting.

Even years after that day, he still wasn't entirely certain why he'd had to have it, why he liked it.

There had always just been something about it that he'd wanted to keep.

Even if he hadn't ever been able to figure out exactly what that something was.

Sometimes when he couldn't sleep, when the silence of the apartment seemed like it was closing in all around him, a suffocating weight bearing down on him in the dark, he would come out there and wrap himself up in blankets and sit and stare at it for hours and he always felt… better.

Sometimes he fell asleep on the floor there and Gin would shake him awake in the morning and press a mug of hot tea into his hands.

"No one asked you," he murmured, but the words came out soft, almost fond.

Ridiculous.

Gin had always said it mostly just seemed lonely, morose.

They'd fought about his desire to put it in the living room and he'd only won the argument with the reasoning that he spent more time in the room than Gin did.

He knew it shouldn't matter that the Man-Tiger liked his painting, but it did.

At least a little.

The sharp, building whistle of the kettle rescued him from his thoughts and back to the process of making tea.

By the time he'd poured the tea and moved into the living room to set the cups down on the little table with a pair of soft clinks, Man-Tiger had stopped wandering around the room like a lost child and was instead perched on the very edge of the couch, wincing as if he were concerned he was going to offend the cushions.

He'd wrapped the blanket all around himself and he had his hands pressed against his knees as he leaned forward, squinting at the little television screen as small cartoon characters ran to and fro across it, only glancing up when he set the cups down.

"Thanks," he murmured, smiling again as he lifted the offered cup to his lips.

He sat beside him, not quite near enough to touch.

It still felt too close even though they'd sat closer a hundred times before.

They sipped their tea in that same awkward silence and he forced himself to try to focus on the television, on the blur of colors darting back and forth across the screen.

"Iwanto."

Man-Tiger's mug hit the table too loud and too hard and for a second that was all he could focus on because thinking about what he'd just said, that string of smushed syllables that could have been a single word for as quickly as they were spoken, but obviously weren't.

He didn't drop his mug.

Didn't spill his tea or throw it at him like he kind of wanted to do.

Just took another sip instead, let it burn against his tongue.

If he didn't reply, if he simply ignored the outburst, there was always a chance he could pretend it hadn't happened at all.

But Man-Tiger's fingers were digging into the blanket like claws and he looked… wet and weak, frustrated and as vulnerable and small as he had in the entryway, and though he wants to look away, he didn't.

"I wanted to back at my place. I think I've wanted to for a while," Man-Tiger continued, because apparently he was incapable of stopping now that he'd finally gotten started again and on the train… on the train it had been easy to make him, to lash out, but for some reason it was different in the quiet of his apartment.

Here his power laid silent and still beneath his skin, as if it were also transfixed, pinned like a butterfly to a board, by the strangeness of the moment.

He couldn't _breathe_.

Wasn't sure he wanted to.

Man-Tiger wasn't even looking at him, was mostly talking to his lap, to the table, to the floor, but he still felt like a small animal hiding in a bush, certain if it just remained still enough he wouldn't be seen.

His voice is quiet and all the words came too fast, in a rush, almost too fast to catch, "If you don't want to, that's okay, I mean, we don't have to or anything, but I… I wanted you to know that I do. Want to. With you. I like being with you. I didn't always, but I do now and I just… I want to try it. If you want to."

Only then does he finally fall silent.

And then he looks up at him.

Expectant.

As if he's suppose to have the answer to whatever that… whatever that was.

An answer.

Any answer.

But he's frozen still, gripping the mug so hard that he's a little surprised it hasn't shattered in his grasp.

He can't move even as Man-Tiger lifts a hand to brush the back of his fingers across his cheek, tentative, another question... or maybe it's the same question given different form.

They're warm.

They were always so _warm_.

 _He_ was always so warm.

Wouldn't it be better just to nod?

Just to get it over with?

Speed the inevitability of the end?

The faster they got this out of their systems, the better off they'd both be.

Wasn't that why he'd brought him there?

Because this wasn't….

They weren't….

It would be worth doing just to end the awkwardness of the moment.

Of every moment since he'd uttered that stupid, stupid word, since he'd put a name to a feeling he didn't truly understand.

It should be a simple decision.

It wasn't.

His heart felt like it was beating far too fast.

He was… nervous.

Nervous in a way he hadn't been since the earliest days of his time with the Port Mafia.

It was a strange feeling.

Unwelcome.

He'd seen Drunk Hat and Dazai-san kiss once and it had looked… painful.

There'd been nothing like affection in it.

Nothing soft.

Nothing like the slow, tentative brush of Man-Tiger's fingers against his skin, his hair.

"Is this okay?"

Those warm fingers were trembling against his cheek and he sounded so uncertain.

As uncertain as he felt.

He doesn't know how to answer, wasn't sure whether he could form words even if he wanted to.

And he doesn't.

Want to.

Doesn't want to talk about it.

Doesn't want to do it.

And he _does_.

More than anything he doesn't want to have to be the one to make the decision.

To turn _like_ into something more than a word.

To make everything more confusing than it already was.

And he _does_.

He _does_.

It feels as if Rashomon is inside him again, plunging down deep into the pit at the center of all that he is and has been and ever will be. All desperation and hunger, an overwhelming desire to consume the space between them until there was nothing left. Until it was just the two of them pressed together and they don't have to make any choices at all because the choice had already been made for them.

He was breathing too fast, hands shaking with adrenaline and he choked on his response, whatever it might have been.

Tea sloshed out hot over his fingers as the first cough ripped through him, startling them both.

And then he can't breathe for coughing and the mug is gone from his hands, stolen away before he can spill anymore of the tea within.

He could feel Man-Tiger hovering close, too close, his hands floating in the air as if uncertain where to land.

He turned away from him, pressed the back of one aching hand against his lips as if just that will be enough to calm the spasms seizing his chest, to silence the harsh bursts of sound, still the vestiges of the panic that had stirred it into being, curb the sting of frustration that always came with the reminder that his body was _weak_.

 _Weak._

He used to hate him for being everything he wasn't.

For being strong in ways he could never be.

And never appreciating it.

Sometimes he still does.

By the time the fit had subsided, Man-Tiger was on his knees beside him using a handtowel he must have gotten from the kitchen to mop up the spilled tea from the floor.

"Sorry," he offered, smiling weakly as he kept wiping the cloth over the hardwood floor long after the liquid had probably been soaked up. "We don't have to talk about any more if you don't want to."

He wasn't sure whether it was meant to be a serious offer or a miserable attempt at a joke.

Wondered if even Man-Tiger knew for sure.

"It's fine," he says, because it is.

Because there was never any point in lamenting things he could not change.

And putting off the conversation would never really stop it from happening.

"Do you want me to go?"

 _Yes._

"No," the word feels like it's been wrenched away from the very heart of him, as if it had taken roots within him and he'd ripped it from the earth to toss it at his feet leaving bloody wounds behind, just another aching, empty space.

It hurts.

Everything hurts.

He likes him.

He _likes_ him.

And he knows what he's said isn't sufficient, that that one word won't make sense to him. He can see that clearly enough in the way his eyes widen as he looks up at him.

He doesn't know how to do this.

How to ask someone to stay.

How to _make_ them stay.

Had never even _wanted_ to know, because it had never mattered before.

Only Gin had ever stayed and even that felt temporary, uncertain, because they've always been packed and ready to leave at a moments notice. Ready to abandon each other if it becomes necessary, because survival was the most important thing, the only thing that had ever truly mattered.

He _likes_ him.

And no matter what he does now, how this moment ends, it feels like it will be a mistake, a misstep, a trap.

It feels like it will always be the worst possible decision from a field of bad choices.

"Akutagawa."

It's almost a whimper, almost a plea, and he doesn't want to hear it.

Wants to cover his ears so he never has to hear weakness like that from him.

"Just tell me what you _want_."

"How am I supposed to tell you something I don't _know_?" He grumbled, fisting his aching hands in the Man-Tiger's shirt front, crumpling the still damp linen in his hands.

"I don't-"

He doesn't want to hear anymore uncertainty.

Not from him.

Not from either of them.

So he finally puts an end to it by crushing the sound between them, tasting blood in the impact as teeth jolted painfully against flesh as their lips met.

He'd been right about that at least.

It did hurt.

Why did people do such things?

What pleasure did they find in it that made it worthwhile?

Why?

Why risk the pain of it?

Any of it?

It was just another mistake.

He'd always been a slow learner.

He drew away fast, but not fast enough.

The air around them was full of fading blue light and he couldn't break the sudden hold at his waist, couldn't even make sense of it, because he could feel Man-Tiger's hands clutching at his arms.

"Don't," he snarled, the tiger in his voice and in his eyes, the way they glitter in the lamp light. "If you run now, I swear I will chase you down and _eat you_."

"Who's running?" He replied, licking lips that suddenly felt unnaturally dry.

And then Man-Tiger _smiled_.

He wasn't sure he'd ever seen him smile like that before and he wasn't sure what it meant, but it made his stomach flop around like a fish pulled from the water and left to flounder on the shore.

And suddenly there's a word on his tongue, begging to be set free, left stalled and struggling uselessly there, crushed beneath the force of their second kiss.

It's the same, sudden pressure.

But it's different too.

Softer.

Tentative, but no less desperate.

The first kiss had bruised, but this one _burned_.

 _Please._

The word is silent, but he can feel the shape of it like a brand in the way Man-Tiger's lips brush over his own, in the way he stares at him, as if he's afraid to blink for fear that he might disappear at any moment.

He can feel that word in the nervous way he licks his lips, the way his eyelids flutter when his tongue brushes against his skin, the way that barely there touch felt, like it was craving open a wound in his chest. His fingers ached where they're still gripping his shirt.

He closes his own eyes to escape that stare and the seemingly endless barrage of questions it contained.

Is this okay?

Are you okay?

Is this how we do this?

Should we stop?

Should we try again?

He doesn't have any answers.

They're both bumbling about in the dark, bruising themselves against familiar objects made strange by the change of circumstance.

He'd heard all that talk about sex, about kissing, over the years and it had always sounded so _simple_.

And he'd always felt as if they all must have been born with some crucial piece he'd lacked, because he'd never cared about any of it.

Hadn't ever been interested in anyone like that so it hadn't mattered and he'd never really paid all that much attention to any of it, just let the words buzz around him like flies to be waved off or silenced only when they got too annoying.

Now he wished he'd paid more attention.

Because he had no _idea_ what he was doing.

Later that night, as he walked through the snow towards headquarters, he would turn those moments over and over and over in his head, and he'd realize that closing his eyes had made everything worse, made him hyper aware of every tiny shift and change.

The way his heart had been pounding in his head, how warm his breath had been as he'd darted in to press their lips together again.

The way one kiss turned into two, to three, four, until he wasn't the least bit sure where one had ended and the next had begun or how much time had passed since their lips first touched.

It had been nothing but a kiss.

Just the press of lips.

There shouldn't have been anything particularly special about it, nothing that should have made it truly different from any other contact.

But somehow, maybe because it was him, because they'd fought so often, it had felt like every little gesture had had more meaning than it should have had, like every move he made were a puzzle only he could solve, written in a language only he could read.

It had seemed like there was a formless litany of pleas and questions and answers in the curl of his tail around his waist, in the pinch of fingers digging in against his back, beneath his coat, in the way he leaned in against the couch, fit himself into the space between his legs as if he belonged there.

Close like that.

As if he wanted to stay.

It should have been awkward.

It should have been uncomfortable.

Embarrassing, maybe.

Somehow it hadn't been any of those things.

And for whatever reason, while he'd been lost in the immediacy of the moment, the only thought in his head, absurdly, had been that he has no idea what he was supposed to do with his hands.

So he'd ended up leaving them where they were, clutched in his shirt, because it gave him something to hold on to.

He wanted him to be closer, close enough that he can wrap the warmth of him around him like a second skin.

He wanted to shove him away, to summon his power and destroy him.

Destroy them both.

He wanted him to stay.

To go.

To stop.

To continue.

Wanted him to tell him what came next, though he doubted he knew either.

It was _good_.

And it was _awful_.

And he had never before felt so utterly and completely _lost_.

They broke apart again, just far enough to drag oxygen into screaming lungs, and it was in that moment that the word that had been on the tip of his tongue, trapped by the press of lips and the frustration of directionless want, finally broke the silence between them.

It was barely more than a whisper, but it hits the air with the force of a scream.

" _Atsushi._ "

And for one long strange moment he wondered, dazed, why Man-Tiger would say his own name like that.

Couldn't recognize anything of himself in those syllables, in the quivering fragility of the sound.

And then he heard the swift inhale of surprise and the way he said his name... hesitant, almost afraid.

"...A-Akutagawa?"

Only then did he finally realize that it had been _his_ voice, _his_ mistake, _his_ weakness.

Given form.

Given a _name_.

Rashomon is a snarl as it tore free of his throat, light and power rising up to devour the space around him, behind him, to chew an escape route through the wall at his back and he's stumbling backwards as far from the tiger as he can manage with panic and splintering control to drive him. He allowed Rashomon to consume the distance until his back crashed into the far wall of his bedroom as blue light flared to life in the sad remains of his living room to heal whatever wounds he'd left behind him.

As the light faded around them both, he couldn't stop staring at him, kneeling there, framed by the ruined wall.

He'd never seen him look like that.

Wasn't at all sure what that expression _meant_.

Wasn't sure he wanted to know.

All he knew was that looking at him with that look on his face... _hurt_.

The side of the couch, left with little more than a few scraps of fabric and neatly sliced through bits of wood, fell over onto the floor between them with a forlorn thump.

And then there was only silence, silence and fading light and the spoiled remains of intimacy left to spoil in the aftermath.

He should never have brought him there.

No good had _ever_ come from wanting.

They both jumped when his phone rang, a quiet factory-default trill he'd never bothered to change.

He couldn't stop staring at him even as he slid the offending gadget from his coat.

There was no point in glancing at the screen.

He already knew what it would say.

He pressed the button to answer and held the phone to his ear without offering a greeting.

 _"Akutagawa-kun."_

Each syllable felt like a rap across his knuckles, a stinging admonition.

 _"I expect you here within the hour or I'll be sending someone to fetch you."_

There was a click and the phone was silent once more.

Man-Tiger was still staring at him, eyes wide, but he didn't say anything.

Didn't offer to leave again or stay or ask if he was okay and he wasn't sure which he would have preferred.

His lips felt bruised, swollen, and he ran his tongue across the cuts his teeth had made in that first impact.

 _Like._

He liked him.

They liked each other.

And somehow that word felt bigger than it had before as if that poor excuse for a kiss had caused it to grow to gargantuan proportions in his mind.

It was almost... frightening, maybe? It had been so long since he's been frightened of something he could barely remember for sure and wasn't at all certain if that was what it had felt like or if he was just giving another arbitrary name to another unfamiliar feeling.

And that, _that_ was the worst of it by far.

 _Like._

It had been a mistake to give that feeling, that strange unfamiliar fondness, a _name_.

He should never have done that.

Should never have spoken that name aloud.

Should have known better.

 _Did_ know better.

He knew that to name something was to know it, to own it, to allow it permanent residence in your mind.

It let it become a part of you.

Become something you could _lose_.

It made you weak, vulnerable, made you make _stupid_ decisions that compromised _everything_ you'd worked to accomplish.

His hands were shaking as he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

There was a hole in his bedroom wall.

He'd destroyed their couch.

He was pretty sure he'd also destroyed his hands… though those at least seemed to have fixed themselves.

He doubted his wall or couch would do the same.

"Sorry," he murmured, though he wasn't certain exactly what he was apologizing for or who he was apologizing to.

He'd made so many poor choices in the past few hours, days, months that it was difficult to narrow it down.

"It's okay," Man-Tiger replied, though it seemed more like some weird reflex than actual forgiveness.

Not that he wanted his forgiveness.

"I have to go."

He wasn't sure what he expected, but somehow it wasn't for him to just nod as if he'd just informed him it was still snowing outside.

"Yeah, I heard. Will you be okay?"

Same useless question, same equally useless answer.

"I don't know."

Silence fell like a wall between them.

Man-Tiger pulled self-consciously at the remains of his shirt which looks like it had lost a fight with a pair of particularly belligerent pruning sheers.

"Clothes," he began, shifting his gaze down so he was staring hard at his feet, "are in the closet. You can use the bathroom."

"Ah, o-okay, thanks," Man-Tiger replied, though he sounded like he'd rather be doing almost anything else. "Do you, um, mind if I, uh, take a shower?"

"No," he'd murmured, pushing off the wall and walking to the door, opening it and stepping through. He turned a narrow-eyed glare on Man-Tiger, who had stumbled to his feet and was still staring at him wide-eyed as if everything he did was a surprise. "Don't leave before I return or I'll kill you."

He'd meant it to be a threat, but it came out too quiet, too soft, for that.

 _Disgusting._

He'd meant to leave it at that but, as was quickly becoming the standard in all his attempts to leave well enough alone, Man-Tiger had other ideas.

Warm fingers caught at his wrist, pulling him to a stop before he could pass him by.

He considered having Rashomon eat them again.

"I'll be here when you get back."

The words were spoken quietly, firmly, and then the grip on his wrist was gone and Man-Tiger was stepping past him and into his bedroom.

He wondered vaguely, as he donned his boots and left his damaged apartment behind, whether those words were meant to be a threat or a promise.

In the hall, the elevator opened immediately and he stepped inside, pressing the button for the lobby.

As he waited for the doors to close, he found himself half-expected to appear as he had on the train to squeeze through the closing doors.

He didn't.

Instead the doors closed and he began his slow descent alone.

He wasn't sure whether he was disappointed or relieved.


	6. The Naming of Cats - Failures

_"There exists, for everyone, a sentence - a series of words - that has the power to destroy you. Another sentence exists, another series of words, that could heal you. If you're lucky you will get the second, but you can be certain of getting the first."_  
― Philip K. Dick, VALIS

 **-ooo-**

The snow was still falling when he left the station a half-hour later, burying his cold, gloveless fingers in his pockets as he trudged towards the building that had served as the Port Mafia's headquarters since long before he'd become a member of their number.

He still remembered keenly how it had felt to enter that space for the first time.

Remembered how each step he had taken had seemed to echo through those rooms. How he'd kept his eyes trained on his new mentor's back, marveling at how at ease with which he carried himself as he swept ahead of him through the candle-lit darkness on silent feet, humming a tune beneath his breath.

He hadn't recognized the song, but he'd been pretty sure whatever it was had been either terrible, horribly off-key or both.

Probably both.

Maybe it should have put him at ease, that tuneless song, but it hadn't. If anything the way that cheerful sound had contrasted with the solemnity of the rooms they'd passed through had just made him feel all the more out of place.

As if he were dreaming and at any moment he might wake up to find himself dying in that clearing.

Without purpose, without future or even vengeance, without anything to call his own.

He'd trailed behind him, eyes focused only on the blur of white floating through the darkness as he fell further behind with each passing moment. He couldn't tell if he was slowing or Dazai-san was moving faster only that the distance between them grew wider and wider still.

The wound in his side had ached viciously once the adrenaline of his long, frantic run had faded from his system and it had only been the thrill of a purpose found, a mentor obtained, that had driven him forward, kept him moving during that long trek away from everything he'd ever known. Each step had felt more difficult than the last and that too-large coat Dazai-san had draped around him had seemed impossibly heavy across his shoulders as if the pockets were filled with the weight of the obligation owed.

Whatever it was had left him feeling… smaller, weaker, than he had ever felt before.

Had him wondering if he had deserved to be there at all.

Deserved to set a single foot away from the dreary, wretched circumstances of his prior existence.

In the long years since that day, headquarters hadn't changed much. The building was still dark and dreary, still reeked of mildew and decay, though he was relatively certain now that much of that was due to intent rather than neglect, to set those who dared to visit ill at ease from the first moments.

Boss Pervert's rooms he was less certain of as they had never changed at all from that first day. It often seemed as if they were frozen in time, trapped in a single precise moment.

Even the candles seemed to burn just the same, their drippings just as thick and layered as they'd ever been.

The room itself had always seemed cavernous and strangely empty for all its fancy, expensive furnishings. Everything was polished so it gleamed in the dim light, but it all seemed cold, lifeless, as if warm hands had never touched those surfaces, never drawn the books from those shelves. Even the chairs were oddly positioned, placed throughout the room seemingly at random, too far from each other to speak of companionship, tiny misshapen islands in a darkened sea.

Something about the room had always made him think of those women and men who had peddled their bodies in the narrow streets and darkened alleyways of the world below. The way they'd used powders and creams to cover sores and blemishes, cheap perfumes to mask the stench of sweat and unwashed skin, how they'd donned all those pretty trappings to distract from the signs of desperation and despair that had always lain just beneath the surface.

Sometimes, most times, he thought it was probably to his benefit that it did.

It was never a comfort, that vague reminder of where he'd come from, so it kept him sharp, never allowed him to be lulled by the familiarity of habit into believing he was safe there, that his position was secure.

Each step he took in that room always seemed to carry with it an echo of admonishment.

Mind your manners.

Hold your tongue.

Heel.

Fetch.

Kill.

 _Obey._

It kept him from falling into the trap of complacency.

Reaffirmed his purpose.

Reminded him that he was strong, but never strong _enough._

That there had always been someone stronger.

Always would be.

It had been late by the time he had arrived at headquarters though he wasn't certain what time he'd gotten to or left his apartment.

Where he'd...

He tightened his hand into a fist at his side, taking comfort in the bite of nails against his palm.

His lips still felt strange.

Tingly.

 _Foolish._

He shouldn't have...

He hadn't a clue how long it had taken him to get back to the train, to walk the length of the streets between.

Didn't even know when he'd arrived at Man-Tiger's place in the first place.

When he'd left.

He shouldn't have gone there in the first place.

Shouldn't have let Atsushi follow him home after.

 _Man-Tiger._

So many things he shouldn't have done.

His lips had been warm.

 _Stop it._

He'd probably know what time it was if he'd bothered to actually _look_ at his phone when he'd answered it.

Not that it really mattered how late it was.

He knew it was late enough.

There had been few enough people on the streets between when he'd left the Man-Tiger's place and no one around when he'd left his own, but that could just as easily have been due to the turn of the weather as the lateness of the hour.

Too late to start tending to repairs.

To get a new couch.

Or learn to repair drywall.

 _Stop thinking about it._

He wiped his muddy boots against the mat inside the door and whispered his power into life long enough to shake his clothing free of the featherlight weight of snow that had settled against his shoulders and hair during the brisk walk from the station before he stepped inside, allowing the door to fall shut behind him, a loud booming announcement of his presence that echoed through the deserted rooms.

There was no point in hiding his arrival, no gain to be found in a silent approach.

Boss Pervert had probably known he'd arrived before he had.

When he'd reached his room he hadn't been surprised to find it noisy with that girl's sharp refusals and the Boss' murmured attempts to coax her into pajamas as he'd knelt beside her with a pile of glossy red fabric bunched in his hands and an anxious expression on his face.

"Please, Elise-chan? For me?"

"I'm not _tired_ , Rintarou," she'd insisted, stomping one small, bare foot insistently against the floor. "And I don't like those pajamas. I want to wear the _blue_ ones."

He paused just inside the door, shutting it with a quiet snap.

He wasn't particularly surprised when Boss Pervert didn't even bother to flick a glance in his direction.

"Now, now, Elise-chan, be reasonable," he'd commented instead, sounding vaguely amused by her antics.

Of course, Boss Pervert _always_ sounded vaguely amused, no matter the content of the conversation or with whom he was speaking.

Even when he was playing at being distressed or displeased, he still sounded amused, as if he could always find some native humor in any given situation... even if no one else could.

It was a fact that had always grated against his tender nerves like sandpaper, had always made him feel as if he were the butt of some private joke whenever he heard those light, springy notes of mirth dancing in his voice or the soft accompanying giggle from the small, ageless girl that always lingered nearby, sprawled beneath a table or across the floor, surrounded by an endless series of childish diversions.

It had always left him with the certainty that he was missing something important.

Made him restless and uneasy, eager to prove himself worthy, _better_.

Always better.

It had been the same on that very first day when Dazai-san had settled a hand against his back and thrust him forward too roughly, sent him tripping forward on clumsy feet with a completely insincere: _'Whoopsie'_.

He'd ended up on his knees staring up into the Boss' dark, pitiless gaze and he'd known - even before he'd spoken a single word - that his life held no particular value to that man.

That whatever value Dazai-san had seen in him, it would be that man who would ultimately determine his fate.

That man was the man in charge.

That was the _Boss_.

"Dazai-kun," he'd said, a strange smile quirking his lips. "I realize that children these days have a certain fondness for bringing home whatever stray happens to stumble into their path, but you've never struck me as that sort. If you require a playmate, I'm quite certain Chuuya-kun would be willing to oblige you."

"Wasn't it you who told me to stop picking on him? I seem to recall something about the repairs for the property damage being too costly." Dazai-san's voice sounded light, airy, but there was steel beneath. "Besides, it wasn't a playmate I was looking for today. I'm not really an Executive until I have someone to boss around, right?"

"Oh? And this is who you've chosen? Are you quite sure? Your choice seems rather… questionable this time, I'm afraid."

He laughed, "When have I ever been wrong about a potential recruit?"

"There's a first time for everything beneath the sun, Dazai-kun."

"Fine, fine. Better show him what you can do, Akutagawa. If you can't prove you're useful he'll probably kill you for trekking all that mud across Elise's new dresses."

He'd been so hungry, so tired, so focused on the insistent throb of pain in his side that he hadn't even noticed he was kneeling in a pile of richly colored silk.

Had barely noticed the glint of light off the slim blade sweeping through the air towards his throat.

Hadn't even been able to summon up enough energy to be surprised by it.

That day had already been so _long_.

Their bodies had been broken in so many different places that they'd hardly looked like the boys he'd known at all anymore.

Skulls caved in, blood everywhere.

Not that he'd cared.

Not really.

They'd been a convenience that bettered his chances of survival.

They'd been an obligation.

Nothing more.

Gin had known all their names.

Had sometimes sat in the lopsided little shack they'd been staying in for hours on end talking and laughing with them before heading back to Auntie's for the night.

Gin had always been good with people in a way he was not.

It had only been a fluke of fate that they'd been meeting in the city when the attack came.

They didn't meet all that often and had only been meeting that day because they'd taken a piece of jewelry from an adult the day before that needed to be sold and Gin was more familiar with the brokers. Had always been willing to play at being a girl for them if it worked to their advantage, garnered a bit of extra sympathy that would fetch them a better price for what they sold, put a little more money in their pockets.

Made it easier to buy food too.

"It's nice to be able to earn my share," Gin had commented as they stripped the dress off and stashed it on the porch before pulling a fresh shirt on. "Of course, if you'd just let me work with you guys..."

"No."

The last thing he needed was for Auntie to have an excuse to kick Gin out.

There were enough mouths to feed as it was without adding the extra burden of one more to their number.

They'd been halfway back when the first screams had broken the air.

Or perhaps they'd been happening far longer than that and they just hadn't yet been near enough to hear them.

He wasn't sure why he hadn't simply turned back when he heard them, only that he hadn't.

Instead, he'd broken into a run, his feet carrying him forward fast and faster still as his ability leapt to life around him, tendrils pulling free of the threadbare clothes he wore to lash the air in warning.

There was blood splattered across the ground just outside the door and he could hear the stomp of feet, the climbing shrieks of voices he'd known calling out from inside, the harsh shouts of men demanding answers.

He'd been so focused on what was happening inside that house that he hadn't noticed the man they'd left outside at all. Not until he'd heard the scrap of a shoe against dirt behind him and side-stepped just enough to receive only a glancing blow against the back of his head from the club the man wielded.

 _Stupid._

So stupid.

He should have approached more cautiously or not at all.

What use would he have been to anyone if he were already dead?

As he'd stumbled, he'd managed to tangle the tendrils of Rashomon around him just enough trip him up, to silence him and keep him from calling to his companions inside, but everything had been fuzzy and the ringing in his head had made his hold falter. He'd felt the man pull an arm free of his hold and then the ringing in his head had been the least of his concerns as pain exploded in his side, knocking the air from his lungs.

He still wasn't completely certain what had happened next, only that the man had landed heavily beside him and he'd found himself staring into eyes that were wide and blank. Then Gin had been beside him, yanking on his arm, dragging him to his feet. Tugging one arm across their slim shoulders and wrapping a firm arm around his waist, forcing him to follow as they fled the sounds of slaughter that seemed to follow them long after they should have been swallowed by distance.

They'd _run._

It seemed like they'd run for a very long time.

He vaguely remembered stumbling, almost falling, his knees kissing the dirt, scrapping against the rough dirt paths Gin steered them down again and again, his heart thundering in his ears.

But most of it had been a blur of sound and motion and color and pain.

Always pain.

The next thing he'd been truly aware of had been laying on the porch of Auntie's house as Gin shoved something into his mouth explaining that it was so he wouldn't scream or bite his tongue off when they began stitching the wound in his side closed.

He'd reached up and tugged the ball of cloth from his mouth, tossing it aside.

Slapped their hand away when they'd tried to put it back.

Eventually they'd given up.

It hadn't hurt much.

He hadn't screamed.

Though it was possibly he'd blacked out once or twice.

Gin hadn't protested when he'd pushed himself up onto wobbly feet sometime afterward, had followed him in resigned silence as he made the slow trudge back to that place.

The man Gin had killed had been abandoned, left lying in a pool of his own blood in the patchy grass and weeds that had surrounded the place.

There was no profit to be made when you were dead.

And one less man meant one less split in the take.

The inside of the shack had been littered with bodies, blood… there'd been no question of survivors.

They were all dead.

Gin had known all their names and he'd thought he'd heard them whimper one or two before they'd ducked out to throw up in the bushes as he'd stepped further inside to retrieve what little was still salvageable.

He'd never bothered to learn their names, hadn't cared to.

Names hadn't mattered.

What was the point in giving a name to an existence that was so utterly disposable?

They only knew his because Gin had told them.

He hadn't seen the point.

So many had come and gone, died in the night or been caught stealing, been beaten to death by people bigger and meaner, stronger than they'd ever been.

What was the point in learning names when they'd be gone soon enough?

He hadn't wanted all those names cluttering up his head, giving meaning to empty spaces where people used to be.

It was stupid and sentimental and he was neither.

So, he'd only known them by what they could do, by their more annoying habits.

Convenient labels for when identification was absolutely necessary.

Tip-Tap, Rabbit's Foot, Charcoal, Itchy, Spitfire, Bells, Doll Boy.

All gone.

Their faces had faded from his mind already, information deemed unnecessary and unwanted.

Blood smeared across his hands, soaked into his pants as he shoved what remained aside to get to their favorite hiding spots.

He took only what mattered. Coins and trinkets that could be easily sold. He found a stash of cheap candy sewn into the back of a doll and he left it there with what remained of them.

Stepped over and past cooling flesh with his meager findings, emerging into the darkening world to find Gin waiting for him with tearstained cheeks.

Before he left to seek the vengeance he'd promised them, he'd pressed what he'd found into Gin's hands.

Of the two of them, Gin had been the more likely to have a need for it.

They hadn't bothered with farewells when he'd turned and run down the path towards the harbor.

He had a promise to keep and they'd never been much for pointless sentimentality.

When he'd arrived, trembling with exhaustion, he hadn't found vengeance, just the cooling dead and Dazai-san offering him his coat and a purpose.

It had been days since he'd slept properly.

Longer still since he'd had more than weeds and rock hard bread to eat.

Gin had bought a whole bag full of food with the money they'd gotten from selling that stupid necklace.

He wasn't sure what had happened to it.

Probably dropped in the dirt, stolen away by some other nameless kids giddy with their good fortune.

Not that it mattered.

He had a purpose now, a reason for being, an answer to the question he'd been asking himself for so long.

He wasn't about to let all that slip through his fingers without a fight.

He'd been wheezing, his whole body covered in sweat and trembling with effort as his borrowed coat rose up around him, snapped and crackled, a monster made of darkness and rage, pain and desperation, that crashed against the edge of the Boss' blade, throwing it off course so it only nicked the side of his throat.

The Boss' eyes widened briefly.

He hadn't known or cared whether it was surprise or interest.

All that had mattered was that the scalpel had vanished as quickly and completely as it had first appeared.

"Oh my, but that _is_ interesting."

"He _stinks_ ," the little girl had sung, not looking up from where she had been sprawled, scribbling across the pages of one of her many books. "Make him take a bath, Rintarou."

"Now, now, Elise-chan, that's hardly polite. We should be kind to guests and kinder still to new recruits. I do apologize… Akutagawa-kun, was it? Dazai-kun will show you to where you will be staying for the immediate future. As he will be your first acquisition since becoming an Executive, I assume you will be taking charge of his training personally?"

"I'm sure I'll find a use for him," Dazai-san had replied, ruffling a hand through his hair.

The bandages had been rough, catching and pulling lightly at the individual strands, but it had felt like approval.

Like he'd done _well_.

It caused something to swell warm and unfamiliar in his chest.

He'd thought he might spend the rest of his life chasing that feeling.

Dazai-san had walked away without another word and he'd followed, steps slow, stumbling, breathing labored.

He had managed to get as far as about halfway down the long corridor outside the room before darkness had swallowed him up.

He'd woken hours later on a different floor to a strange insistent clicking noise.

Dazai-san had glanced up from the video game system he held in his hands with a frown, fingers still tapping away even while his attention was elsewhere. "You're bleeding all over the floor, you know. You should _really_ tend to that. Seems to me like you should at least be able to use your power to bandage the wound."

He'd never thought of his power as anything but a weapon, a means to an end.

"That's what I thought," Dazai-san had sighed, looking vaguely disappointed. "You're going to _such_ hard work. You wanted a purpose and I'll give you that, but I hope you're worth all the effort I'm going to have to put in."

He'd sounded so put-out, as if he hadn't been the one to offer him a place to belong, as if his being there had nothing to do with him at all, as if he were a burden chosen by whim and happenstance.

Just a beggar whose loyalty had been purchased by chance and fortune.

He knew it wasn't true, remembered ever detail of their first encounter. Dazai-san had come there for _him_ , had _chosen_ _him_ , but he also remembered keenly how bitter the realization had been of how far he clearly had to go to _earn_ that place, to earn Dazai-san's approval.

Remembered well how… eager, _determined_ he'd been to win his favor, his praise, to be strong enough to prove that Dazai-san's choice hadn't been a mistake.

To feel the warmth of his approval again.

To prove that it hadn't been a mistake.

He wasn't sure why he was thinking of all this now.

It had been years since he'd allowed himself to dwell on any of it.

To even think of it except in passing and tonight... tonight he was like a book with the binding torn off, all the pages of his life falling out to be trampled by clumsy feet.

Stupid Man-Tiger.

It was probably his fault.

If he hadn't...

 _Don't think about it._

About _him_.

Maybe all this was just some desperate attempt to avoid doing just that.

He was a distraction.

A distraction that was almost certainly sitting on _their floor_ , in _their_ apartment, watching _their_ television wasting perfectly blended tea leaves by brewing them poorly.

Hair still damp from the shower.

 _Stop it._

Just _stop_ thinking about it.

About _him._

"Elise-chan? Would you like me to read you a bedtime story?" Boss Pervert's words dragged long, each pause measured and steady as the beat of a heart.

He always spoke so _softly,_ as if that bloodstained room he so often insisted on meeting in were a library or a church instead of just another gaudy room in that decaying building by the sea.

"I can read my own, you know. I'm not a _baby_ ," Creepy Girl replied, wheeling around to serve him with a sour look before she flounced past him to flop down on the floor next to a towering pile of books, pulling one into her lap and flipping back the cover.

Boss Pervert sighed heavily, picking up the discarded dress from the floor and straightening it, eyeing the fabric critically as if the state of that dress were far more important than he or any other visitor could ever would be.

He could taste the truth of that action in the air. It was familiar enough and had always left a bitter taste on his tongue.

Still, he had waited in silence, muscles aching with the effort it took to keep his hands limp at his sides as he watched Boss Pervert sweep imaginary dust from the silk before guiding it onto a hanger and escorting it to a hook beside him, so close the dress brushed against his shoulder as it fell into place.

Boss Pervert turned away crossing back to the chair that was positioned near the center of the room.

There was a small table beside it, a fancy lamp casting dim light on a equally fancy tea set.

Was this what it felt like to wait for an executioner's axe to fall?

Did those last moments always feel like eternity?

Like a whole lifetime of anticipation stretched across the span of a minutes?

Was there a feeling of relief when the blade slicing open the back of your neck finally answered the question of _when_?

"Akutagawa-kun?"

The drawling syllables of his name were enough to startle him from his thoughts and set his heart to racing in his chest, putting a catch in his throat. He muffled a cough against the back of one trembling hand as some emotion he couldn't identify seized tight around his chest like a vise.

He coughed again.

"Akutagawa-kun," he called again, that ever-present amusement turning the syllables into a song. "Is something wrong?"

Was there a right answer to such a question when asked by such a man?

His thoughts felt too slow, too muddled, they always did when confronted by such questions.

He'd never been clever the way Dazai-san had clearly wanted him to be.

He'd always tripped and faltered, always failed miserably whenever Dazai-san would play these sorts of games with him. He never knew the right answer, even when he thought he did. He'd always failed to please; had never been capable of pulling the truth from beyond the obvious, never been able to see the right choice rather than the most convenient, the most expedient. Still didn't understand how to play a long game or why anyone would bother.

Failing that way had always left him feeling… cold, empty.

Had always made him work that much harder to prove that he could become what he wanted him to be, that he could become stronger.

Always made him increasingly desperate to prove that he was… _enough_.

Only he never had been.

Not then.

But Dazai-san had at least _wanted_ him to succeed.

Boss Pervert always seemed just as content with his failures as his successes so long as there was some benefit to be had for the organization.

"Do relax, Akutagawa-kun," he called, settling in his chair and beckoning him over with a gentle wave of his hand. "I didn't call you here to _admonish_ you. Hm, well, perhaps a very little bit. You've seemed so _distracted_ of late and I do like to know that all my people are doing _well_."

It wasn't a question so he didn't answer as he dragged his feet in coming to stand before him.

 _Don't speak out of turn._

 _Don't draw attention to yourself unnecessarily._

"…Not if you want to survive here."

Gin had nodded, expression solemn, more serious than he'd ever seen them, "I'll remember."

They pulled their mask up over their face, obscuring what few similarities were obvious between them.

He nodded quickly, glancing at the time before turning his focus to the door, "Look after yourself first, always."

They would need to leave soon.

"Brother…."

 _"Always_ ," he snapped, fingers clenching against the cuffs of his jacket. "I won't be looking out for you, so you'll have to look out for yourself. You have to survive on your own, make your own way. The Mafia has no room for dead weight."

"Of course," Gin answered, voice muffled and almost unfamiliar through that heavy cloth.

Gin would be coming in as a basic recruit on Dazai-san's recommendation.

When he'd asked, Dazai-san had smiled. It had somehow seemed both grim and wry, but he was long used to Dazai-san being a study in contradiction.

"You want your cute little sister to join the band?"

 _Want?_

What did that matter?

Gin had asked with a steady expression and quiet determination so he'd seen no reason to deny or question a request spoken with such obvious resolve. If he refused his aid, Gin would have found another path to reach the same goal. He had been given a purpose within the Port Mafia and the satisfaction that had come with knowing what he was meant to do, that there was a reason for his existence.

Why would he deny Gin the same opportunity?

They had never been close, not truly.

Gin had grown up with a roof over their head and food in their belly while he'd been learning how to use his power to take what he needed to ensure their continued survival.

He remembered holding them when they were small.

Begging food from neighbors when their parents had been absent.

Brushing their hair.

Most of his earliest memories were of Gin.

He'd given them over to the care of Auntie when they'd been still quite small so they'd spent much of their lives apart.

In many ways, for a long while, they had been little more than strangers with shared blood and history and only what little affection such things summoned to bind them. It was difficult

Did he want Gin to join the Port Mafia?

He didn't have an answer for that question, only the long shadow of obligation that had always demanded he see to Gin's health and continued well-being when the need arose.

Dazai-san had huffed out a sigh at his lack of response, disappointed again, always, "Fine, fine. I did say that I'd take care of both you and your cute sister. You won't be able to keep the fact that you're siblings a secret, but I'd suggest you don't advertise it either since it wouldn't benefit either of you. I'll go to your place and she and I will have a little chat about her ambitions. In the meantime, I'm going to chain you to this wall and you're going to try to free yourself without using your power to break the wall or the chain and without injuring your ankle in any way. Understand? Your control should be at least good enough to manage this by now."

The iron shackle had been cold against his skin and Dazai-san had been humming as he donned his coat and left the room, only turning back briefly to smile at him – slim and tight - as the door closed between them. "If you don't manage to break free before supper, you'll be going to bed without it."

The next day he'd stood inside their sparsely decorated apartment giving Gin those last instructions with clumsily bandaged fingers that had still ached from long hours spent prying the shackle free from his ankle when his control over his power had proven too weak to consume the metal of the cuff without rending his flesh in the process.

"The Port Mafia isn't a place that tolerates weakness," he advised. "Only the strong survive here and only those who prove their worth thrive."

"Ryuunosuke…."

 _"Akutagawa_ ," he corrected, voice harsher than he intended it to be. He hadn't slept and exhaustion had been worrying steadily against his already frayed nerves. "If you don't get in the habit now you'll slip when we're at work, _Niihara_."

"Call me Gin, please," they murmured, voice soft. "If I just go by my given name, it won't seem strange if you call me that as well, right?"

He nodded sharply after a moment's consideration. It was a clever enough workaround and - in the end - one solution would do as well as the other.

"Thank you," Gin replied and he could hear the smile in their voice even if he couldn't see it. "I won't let you down, I promise."

"Okay," he'd murmured, shifting his gaze to the wall behind them.

It had always made him uncomfortable when Gin said things like that, had always left him feeling uncertain what to say or how to act, what reaction was expected of him.

He counted himself fortunate that it didn't happen often.

"Well, I certainly can't complain about your work ethic," Boss Pervert remarked, summoning his wandering mind back to the present as he picked up a teapot from the side table and poured the steaming liquid within into one of the two cups waiting there. "After all, you and your division remain one of our most efficient deterrents against both foreign interlopers and aspiring traitors. Still, I must say that I've found your reports to have been a surprisingly… _lacking_ of late."

Lacking?

 _Lacking?_

Was all this about _paperwork_?

How could it be?

He _excelled_ at doing the stupid paperwork.

He'd _had_ to excel at it since he'd been doing Dazai-san's share as well as his own from the moment he'd been able to read well enough to begin filling out the forms with slow, laborious pen strokes.

In his darker moments, he'd sometimes suspected that Dazai-san had taken him on not because of his power, not because he was strong, but instead simply because he'd wanted someone who would do the tedious work for him.

That anything more had been of his own imagining, nothing more than wishful thinking.

Boss Pervert smiled, thin and pleased, no doubt reading the consternation in his expression, "No, no, the concise nature of your reports has always made them a pleasure to read, Akutagawa-kun, I didn't mean to imply otherwise."

He despised being so transparent.

"Rather my concern with the change in your longstanding habit of always reporting in immediately once a mission has been completed unless you are too injured to do so."

He couldn't help the way his body tensed, the way he felt his eyes widen in something approaching horror.

Couldn't shake the sudden memory of plodding through darkened streets to Man-Tiger's apartment; blood still wet on his boots, his phone lying, unused and forgotten in the pocket of his coat.

Falling asleep waiting for him to return.

Of the warmth of the Man-Tiger's ruined shirt against his skin and the way the pressure of his fingers against his cheek had seemed to linger still like the touch had left a stain behind, some visible proof of transgression for all to see.

The warmth of his hand as they'd walked together to his apartment.

The way he'd looked kneeling in front of him.

How warm his lips had felt against his own.

How his mouth still ached from that into first collision.

And the second.

Ached for the lack of a third, perhaps, because he was nothing if not persistent in his foolishness.

He should never have gone there.

Not that first time.

Nor any time after.

He never should have allowed himself to fall into the habit, to allow himself to grow so… complacent.

He had no one to blame for anything that had happened since but himself.

He ran his tongue across the inside of his lip, worrying briefly at the still raw cuts there.

"Of course," Boss Pervert continued, smiling, still _smiling_ _. It was such a congenial smile_ , as if he already knew every thought in his head, could see them all spread out before him like ink spilled across blank paper. "Perhaps I'm making more of this than it is. You might simply have been overtired. Have you been sleeping well?"

"Fine," he breathed the response even as the question thread its way through his already taunt nerves and yanked hard at the knots of dread in his stomach.

"I'm so pleased to hear that. You have such a delicate constitution that - as your doctor - I would be most concerned for what impact an erratic sleep schedule might have on your condition. It's fortunate for us both, that that isn't a problem for you."

He nods quickly.

It's not a lie.

He's never allowed his habits to negatively impact his schedule or his well-being.

He's always been a light, sporadic sleeper prone to bouts of insomnia.

Nothing has truly changed just because he spends most of his nights moving between Man-Tiger's apartment and his own instead of pacing the floors of his lonely rooms.

 _Lonely?_

They hadn't always seemed so.

"Very well then," Boss Pervert said, grimacing as he picked up his tea cup up once more. "Oh dear, where _are_ my manners? Would you care for some tea, Akutagawa-kun? A biscuit perhaps?"

His gaze settled on the tea service laid out on table.

It shouldn't have been a surprise.

It wasn't as if he'd been trying to keep it a secret.

Not really.

He hadn't even really made any particular effort to hide the fact that he was going there, hadn't gone out of his way or doubled back or… anything.

He's not sure why it makes him feel ill to see those biscuits spread piled up so neatly on Boss Pervert's tea tray.

Doesn't know if he would have been bothered about it at all two days ago or ten.

 _Are you in trouble?_

Stupid.

It wasn't… it probably didn't even mean anything.

Plenty of people probably liked that brand of biscuit, the same kind he still brought with him like an offering to a shrine each time he came to darken his doorway, to sleep on his floor or play his stupid card games.

But Gin...

Gin had known just where to find him.

It shouldn't have been a surprise, but, somehow, it still was.

He muffled a cough against the back of his hand and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Boss Pervert looked far too pleased to just let it lie.

"Is that a no?" He inquired, taking another sip of his tea before returning the cup to its saucer with a clatter that caused tension to zip up his spine like electric current.

Danger filled the air, a scent like old, rusty blood, sharp as the edge of the scalpel that he might at any moment find pressed to his throat.

He wondered vaguely how long Man-Tiger would wait if he didn't return.

Whether he'd still be there when Gin came home.

The thought of Man-Tiger trying to explain what had happened to the sofa made him hope so.

He'd always known that he was not like Dazai-san, not like Drunk Hat or Umbrella Lady. He was strong, of course. After all, he'd clawed his way up the ladder to a command position, but there was no power in it beyond what control he had over his subordinates.

He was not _important_ , not now, not yet, maybe never.

He'd survived, risen in the ranks, because he was useful, he was given some latitude in his methods because he was successful in the tasks given him. The moment he ceased to be useful, the moment the cost of his continued existence outweighed the benefit would be the end of him.

He'd known that.

He'd _always_ known that.

The Port Mafia was brutal… but it was also _honest_.

This was something he'd always understood.

Something far more certain than _like_ could ever be.

And yet...

And _yet_.

"I can rely on you, can't I, Akutagawa-kun?" Boss Pervert asked, teacup and saucer set aside, hands steepled in front of his face.

He nodded once, quick and sharp.

 _Like_ changed nothing.

 _He_ changed nothing.

He was still what he had always been.

The fact that he now knew what the Man-Tiger's name tasted like on his tongue changed nothing.

"I'm so glad to hear that," Boss Pervert smiled. "You see, while I do appreciate the initiative you've shown in insinuating yourself more closely with the Agency by infiltrating that boy's life, I must ask that you be cautious and remember that while it might be child's play to fool someone as earnest and eager to please as Atsushi-kun, he is not your true opponent in this. Dazai-kun, as you are no doubt well aware, is a master of manipulation. I doubt it would take very much effort for him to steer the boy in whatever direction held the greatest benefit for him."

Did it seem like that?

Would it be easier to believe that he'd felt nothing at all, that every awkward moment between them had been a careful balancing act of contrived emotion?

Probably.

And maybe in some ways it was.

He'd known that Dazai-san had a hand in it all along, hadn't he?

He'd even told him as much once.

 _"Well, it's not like I_ wanted _to come, Dazai-san said I had to!"_

He wasn't stupid.

It had always been obvious that Dazai-san had been pushing them together. Using various means to pair them off on unnecessary assignments, random errands, intel exchanges, to match them in battle both as partners and opponents.

He hadn't even bothered to hide it, hadn't been the least bit subtle in his efforts.

He'd just shoved Man-Tiger into his path again and again and again until his presence beside him had begun to seem normal, until being with him, near him, became something he _chose_.

Until that worn down animosity had turned into something like grudging acceptance.

Until he had begun to take it for granted, to accept it as a given, to… let his guard down, to reach out, to _want_.

Until he'd let himself take him home, bring him inside and let him see the things he'd never shown anyone else.

Even after all this time, he hadn't really changed.

Dazai-san had probably known that.

Had probably counted on it.

That he still wouldn't bother to look beyond the moment, to see the larger picture. Known that - even if he'd understood earlier what was happening - it probably wouldn't have changed anything at all.

He'd probably still have fallen into his trap, because Ats-

No.

 _Man-Tiger._

He was Man-Tiger.

It was all he was ever meant to be.

 _Names didn't matter._

 _His name_ didn't matter and he needed to stop saying it, stop thinking it.

He just… needed to... _stop._

 _Because he… he was what he was and_ _Man-Tiger_ was an _idiot_.

An earnest idiot with good intentions crafted from naivety and an obsession with earning the right to live his stupid life, a permission he could never, ever earn. He was eager to belong and to please and so utterly ridiculous. Easy to annoy and quick to anger and just as quick to hand out forgiveness like it cost him nothing at all.

And that made him an easy mark for someone as clever as Dazai-san.

It would have probably only taken a few subtle pushes, gentle nudges in the right direction and the Man-Tiger would have never known he was being led at all.

Had inviting him to his apartment that first night been Dazai-san's idea too?

Letting him sleep there?

Inviting him over and letting him in, again and again?

Was all of it just that man pulling strings behind the scenes?

Or was it all just Man-Tiger's foolish nature?

Where did it stop?

Where did Dazai-san end and Man-Tiger begin?

What was real and what was only manipulation?

Did it even matter?

He _liked_ him.

They liked each other.

And he'd already ruined it.

Whatever it was.

Whatever was waiting for him when he returned to his apartment.

What had that look _meant_?

Had it meant anything at all?

Did he still like him?

Did it even matter?

It shouldn't.

It had only ever been meant to be a temporary truce.

It had only ever been a bad habit gone out of control.

When he thought of it that way there was no reason for that strange sense of loss.

No reason to be bothered by the idea that what had happened between them might been orchestrated by the man smiling at him or the man who'd made such a show of pushing them together.

No reason to be the upset by how well he'd been played yet again.

He had no one to blame but himself.

He'd always been a fool.

It was only a fool who would think he could whisper his name and it wouldn't change anything if he were the only one to know, the only one to hear the way those syllables tripped off his tongue with a fondness that had screamed a warning come far too late, a warning that crashed and burned against ears that refused to acknowledge it.

If he'd never said it again, perhaps he could have even convinced himself that it had never meant anything at all.

That the idea of him sitting there in his living room watching cartoons on their tiny television beside what little remained of his ruined couch, wrapped up in one of his blankets didn't fill him with equal measures of pleasure and dread.

That he didn't….

"Now, please don't mistake me," Boss Pervert continued, shrewd eyes suddenly so intent that he felt like a bug being crushed beneath a microscope's lens. "I am not telling you to _stop_. Far from it. Your connections to the agency could prove advantageous to us in the future and while Dazai-kun might be a bit too wily to fall for such deceptions, the same cannot be said of Atsushi-kun. He's always impressed me as being quite simple and since he has invited you into his home, I can't help but assume he's also grown to trust you a great deal. All I wish to do, Akutagawa-kun, is remind you of where your true loyalties must lie. Other than that, I shall leave this operation to your discretion."

Operation.

Discretion.

When he'd been living down in the dark, on those cold, barren streets, he'd never thought twice about letting others starve so they could eat, of making others bleed and die so they could live.

He knew well enough that everything came at a price.

Nothing was free.

That if he wanted to survive, he had to be willing to do anything.

Everything.

He had to be willing to sacrifice for each breath he took, for each beat of his heart and no matter how much the weak paid, it was the strong who would always win out in the end.

Dazai-san had given his life meaning and purpose, but it had been the years before that had taught him the necessity of strength.

That had taught him that emotion was a luxury he'd never be able to afford.

"Akutagawa-kun?" He asked, still smiling behind his hands, soft and amused. "Was there something you wished to say?"

"No," he replied, though it was more difficult to push that single syllable through his lips than it should have been.

"Very well," Boss Pervert offered him one last smile, slim and tight, before pulling a folder from a box beside his chair and offering it to him. "I can understand how it might be a bit difficult to make a decision right away so I've decided to give you time to reflect on your options. After all, such subterfuge is new to you and it's only to be expected that you wouldn't be immediately comfortable with the idea. With that in mind, I thought you might benefit from a break from Yokohama. This is your next assignment. Please make an example of them, would you?"

He took the folder and nodded his assent before turning on his heel and leaving that man and that room behind.

"I'll be expecting an answer upon your return," he called after him, that ever-present amusement in his voice felt like the sting of a lash across his back as he yanked open the door and stepped quickly out through the darkened halls.

"Sleep well, Akutagawa-kun."


End file.
